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*Artificial*, the film about Sam Altman that nobody wants to distribute

Amazon has dropped Guadagnino’s *Artificial* after striking a major partnership with OpenAI. Netflix, A24 and Warner Bros. have turned it down. Mubi remains the last hope for the Altman biopic, the new symbol of the financial powers that link the tech industry and Hollywood

by Marco Trabucchi

FILE PHOTO: Figurines with computers and smartphones are seen in front of the words "Artificial Intelligence AI" in this illustration taken, February 19, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo REUTERS

3' min read

Translated by AI

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english@ilsole24ore.com

Versione italiana

3' min read

Translated by AI

For feedback, please contact
english@ilsole24ore.com

Versione italiana

Can a $50 billion investment influence the fate of a film? That is the question hanging over Luca Guadagnino’s new film about Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, which is fast becoming one of the most talked-about stories in the American film industry.

*Artificial*, the director’s new feature film chronicling the life of OpenAI’s founder – which has already been completed and received a positive reception at a number of private screenings – was due to be distributed by Amazon MGM Studios, with a release scheduled for 2027. Then came the twist: the studio decided to pull out of the project. This decision came just a few months after the announcement of the multi-year strategic agreement between Amazon and OpenAI, which involves investments of around $50 billion in infrastructure, data centres and cloud services aimed at developing artificial intelligence.

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Officially, Amazon has denied any link between the two incidents. In a statement released to the US press, the company struck a conciliatory yet unequivocal tone: ‘We have the utmost respect and admiration for Luca Guadagnino as an award-winning director – not to mention our long-standing collaboration, which we hope will continue. We believe that *Artificial* may be better served by distribution from another studio, and we are working closely with the director’s team to find a new home for the film.” However, the timing of the events has fuelled inevitable questions and speculation.

The biopic: why people don’t like it

The screenplay, written by Simon Rich – a former writer for *Saturday Night Live* and *The Simpsons* – focuses on the five days that shook OpenAI in November 2023, when the board of directors suddenly removed Altman from the helm of the company, only to reinstate him a few days later, under pressure from over 700 employees and investors who threatened to leave the company to follow the CEO to a new division that Microsoft had said it was prepared to set up.

The story is particularly significant because *Artificial* is not a traditional, celebratory biopic, despite its comedy-drama tone (some have already compared it to David Fincher’s *The Social Network*). According to various rumours circulating in Hollywood circles, the film is said to offer an unflattering portrayal of Silicon Valley’s leading figures. Andrew Garfield plays Sam Altman, described by some sources as a manipulative figure prone to mythomania, whilst Ike Barinholtz takes on the role of Elon Musk, who is portrayed in an equally unflattering light. The cast also includes Yura Borisov (the rising star of *Anora*) as co-founder Ilya Sutskever and Monica Barbaro as former CTO Mira Murati.

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A hot potato that other distributors don’t want

What might have seemed like a routine distribution deal quickly turned into a much bigger issue. Following Amazon’s withdrawal, in fact, several other potential buyers are also said to have pulled out of the project. According to reports in the American press, Netflix, A24, Focus Features and Warner Bros. are said to have viewed the film without proceeding to acquire the rights. However, Mubi and Neon remain in the running.

The official reasons for these rejections have not been disclosed. However, industry observers point out that the growing intertwining of the technology, finance and entertainment sectors is making it increasingly delicate to handle works that take a critical look at key figures in the digital economy. The case of A24 – the studio considered by many to be the natural home for a filmmaker such as Guadagnino, having previously distributed *Queer* – is often cited as an example of this complexity: it is financially backed by Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital, which sits on OpenAI’s board of directors and is one of the company’s main investors. Distributing an unflattering biography of Altman in the months leading up to OpenAI’s potential IPO would have put them in exactly the same awkward position as Amazon.

A web of interests that undermines Hollywood’s independence?

For decades, Hollywood has portrayed economic and political power whilst maintaining a degree of autonomy from the subjects it depicts. Today, the major tech platforms are not only central figures in the stories being told, but also investors, business partners, providers of cloud infrastructure and, in some cases, distributors of the content itself. Against this backdrop, *Artificial* risks becoming more than just a film about Sam Altman. It could turn into a test of the cultural industry’s ability to critically examine the new centres of global economic power, at a time when an increasing proportion of its financial and technological resources depends on them. And as is often the case in such situations, the attention generated by the story could end up increasing the project’s value. Should Mubi or Neon acquire it in the coming weeks, the prospect of a world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September is looking increasingly likely.

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