The true-life drama, directed by Oscar nominee Luca Guadagnino, was dumped by its backers in June, with Amazon saying it would be ‘better served if it were released by a different studio’
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The cast of Artificial – Luca Guadagnino’s film about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman – have spoken out about Amazon dropping it last month, with star Andrew Garfield saying that he both “was and wasn’t” surprised by the move.
In June, Amazon MGM Studios revealed that it would not be distributing the nearly-finished $40m film, stating that it would “be better served if it were released by a different studio”. It came just months after Amazon announced it was investing $50bn in Open AI and roughly a year after he attended the wedding of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to Lauren Sánchez.
The film, which stars Garfield as Altman and details his firing and rehiring from OpenAI in 2023, was picked up by indie distributor Neon earlier this month following a bidding process.
Speaking out about the drama surrounding the film’s release, Garfield said on Wednesday (29 July) that he “was and wasn’t” surprised by Amazon choosing to drop it.
“I think there are certain things that fit certain places and don’t fit other places and they [Amazon] were nothing but supportive and nothing but encouraging while we were making the film,” he told Variety.
“Luca has a really great relationship with them and I’ve developed a lovely relationship with them as well. I’m grateful that they’ve helped the film to find the home that it was meant to find.”
Meanwhile, co-star Cooper Hoffman – who plays OpenAI chairman Greg Brockman in the film – said he wasn’t surprised at all by Amazon wanting nothing to do with the film.
“I’m shocked they picked it up in the first place,” he said. “I don’t know who’s running everything. When they dropped it, it was kinda like, ‘Oh, yeah, that kinda actually makes sense,’ but then it got picked up by Neon, which I’m so happy about. I love Neon and I couldn’t be more happy.”
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He added that he wasn’t worried about it being picked up by another studio as “it’s a Luca movie” starring “all these heavy hitters”.
The biographical comedy drama, written by former Saturday Night Live writer Simon Rich, also stars Monica Barbaro, Yura Borisov, Mark Rylance, Jason Schwartzman and Zosia Mamet among others. Meanwhile, Elon Musk – who is one of the founders of OpenAI – is set to be played by The Studio’s Ike Barinholtz.
Last month, a spokesperson for Amazon said that while it had “the utmost respect and admiration for Luca Guadagnino as an award-winning filmmaker”, it would not be moving forward with Artificial.
“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,” they added.
Last November, Amazon announced its plans to expand a $38m multi-year deal to run OpenAI’s systems on its cloud services and months later, it invested $50bn in the company.
While it has not been confirmed why Amazon decided to drop Artificial, an early viewer told Variety that audiences would like Altman and Musk “the least” after watching the film. It was also reported that Amazon had already seen every early iteration of the script before Guadagnino was hired to direct. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is a well-known friend of OpenAI founder Altman – with the latter attending the former’s high-profile wedding in Venice, Italy, last year.
*Artificial *will instead be released by Neon at a later date.
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