Netflix, A24, Focus Features, and Warner Bros.' Clockwork have all reportedly passed on picking up "Artificial" — director Luca Guadagnino's biographical drama about OpenAI cofounder and CEO Sam Altman — for distribution, with only Neon and Mubi still said to be interested. The situation follows Amazon MGM's unexpected announcement last week that it no longer plans to distribute the film, even though postproduction was nearly finished and Amazon had reportedly planned an Oscar-qualifying theatrical run and a wider release in early 2027, along with a showing at the SXSW Film & TV Festival.
Amazon told Deadline the film would be "better served if it were released by a different studio," but the move comes after the company's $50 billion investment into OpenAI earlier this year, raising questions about whether Amazon is reluctant to release a film that portrays an AI executive in a negative light.
Written by Simon Rich, "Artificial" chronicles the 2023 period when Altman was fired from OpenAI and subsequently rehired, a saga that began with the board alleging he was not "consistently candid in his communications," continued with Altman set to join Microsoft and hundreds of employees threatening to quit, and ended with Altman returning to OpenAI and installing a largely new board of directors.