Months after Amazon announced plans to invest billions in OpenAI, the e-commerce giant’s film studio has now dropped an upcoming movie about the AI company.
Amazon MGM has decided not to release Artificial, Luca Guadagnino’s upcoming movie starring Andrew Garfield as OpenAI Co-founder and CEO Sam Altman.
Puck reports that the nearly finished movie was initially expected to be released later this year, but is now being shopped around to other studios.
“We have the utmost respect and admiration for Luca Guadagnino as an award-winning filmmaker – not to mention a longstanding relationship that we hope to continue,” an Amazon spokesperson told Gizmodo in an emailed statement. “We believe that ‘Artificial’ will be better served if it were released by a different studio and are working closely with the filmmaking team to find the film a new home.”
Guadagnino is known for stylish, buzzy films including Call Me by Your Name, Queer, and Challengers. Now, the Italian director is taking on Silicon Valley. Artificial is being described as a comedic drama about the world of artificial intelligence.
The film centers around the time Altman was suddenly fired from the company in 2023, only to be rehired four days later.
Altman was initially ousted by the company’s board for allegedly not being “consistently candid in his communication with the board.” The New York Times reported at the time that Altman had tried to remove one of the directors, Helen Toner, because he thought she had been critical of OpenAI’s safety practices in a research paper she co-authored, while praising rival firm Anthropic.
Microsoft quickly offered Altman a job, prompting most of OpenAI’s staff to threaten to quit. Eventually, Altman won the power struggle and returned to lead the company with much of the board replaced.
According to IMDb, the rest of the cast includes Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk, Monica Barbaro as Mira Murati, and Anora breakout star Yura Borisov as OpenAI’s former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever.
A source familiar with the matter told Puck that the tone of the movie ended up being significantly darker than the script and Guadagnino’s original pitch.
Furthermore, Variety reports, also citing unnamed sources, that the film’s version Altman and Musk are unsympathetic and are the characters audiences would “like the least.”
Musk co-founded OpenAI with Altman and others back in 2015, but he left in 2018, reportedly over disagreements about the company’s direction. He now runs a rival company, xAI. And the feud between the two has only escalated since.
Amazon MGM’s decision also comes months after Amazon announced a major strategic partnership with OpenAI. Under the deal, Amazon said it would invest $50 billion in the AI company, starting with an initial $15 billion investment followed by another $35 billion if certain conditions are met. Amazon also said AWS would become the exclusive third-party cloud distribution provider for OpenAI Frontier.
Additionally, Variety reports that Altman and Amazon Founder and Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos have a personal relationship, with Altman attending Bezos’ wedding last year.
It’s unclear whether Amazon’s partnership with OpenAI or Altman’s relationship with Bezos played any role in Amazon MGM’s decision to drop the film.
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