Months after Amazon announced plans to invest billions in OpenAI, the e-commerce giant\u2019s film studio has now dropped an upcoming movie about the AI company.<\/p>\n
Amazon MGM has decided not to release Artificial, Luca Guadagnino\u2019s upcoming movie starring Andrew Garfield as OpenAI Co-founder and CEO Sam Altman.<\/p>\n
Puck reports<\/a> that the nearly finished movie was initially expected to be released later this year, but is now being shopped around to other studios.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have the utmost respect and admiration for Luca Guadagnino as an award-winning filmmaker \u2013 not to mention a longstanding relationship that we hope to continue,\u201d an Amazon spokesperson told Gizmodo in an emailed statement. \u201cWe believe that \u2018Artificial\u2019 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.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The film centers around the time Altman was suddenly fired from the company in 2023, only to be rehired four days later<\/a>.<\/p>\n Altman was initially ousted by the company\u2019s board for allegedly not being \u201cconsistently candid<\/a>\u00a0in his communication with the board.\u201d\u00a0The New York Times reported<\/a> at the time that Altman had tried to remove one of the directors, Helen Toner, because he thought she had been critical of OpenAI\u2019s safety practices in a research paper she co-authored, while praising rival firm Anthropic.<\/p>\n Microsoft quickly offered Altman a job, prompting most of OpenAI\u2019s staff to\u00a0threaten to quit<\/a>. Eventually, Altman won the power struggle and returned to lead the company with much of the board replaced.<\/p>\n According to IMDb<\/a>, the rest of the cast includes Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk, Monica Barbaro as Mira Murati<\/a>, and Anora breakout star Yura Borisov as OpenAI\u2019s former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever<\/a>.<\/p>\n A source familiar with the matter told Puck that the tone of the movie ended up being significantly darker than the script and Guadagnino\u2019s original pitch.<\/p>\n Furthermore, Variety reports, also citing unnamed sources, that the film\u2019s version Altman and Musk are unsympathetic and are the characters audiences would \u201clike the least.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n Musk co-founded OpenAI with Altman and others back in 2015, but he left in 2018<\/a>, reportedly over disagreements about the company\u2019s direction. He now runs a rival company, xAI.\u00a0 And the feud between the two has only escalated since.<\/p>\n