# Neon Rescues Sam Altman Movie After Amazon Drops It > Source: > Published: 2026-06-30 23:40:15+00:00 Neon, the independent studio that backed the best picture Oscar winner *Parasite*, will release *Artificial*, the Sam Altman movie, [according to the New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/30/business/media/openai-movie-artificial-neon-amazon.html). Earlier this month, Amazon MGM [dropped the movie](https://gizmodo.com/amazon-mgm-studios-backs-out-of-sam-altman-biopic-months-after-amazon-gave-openai-tons-of-money-2000774244), releasing a statement that said, “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.” An anonymous insider [told Variety](https://variety.com/2026/film/global/luca-guadagnino-sam-altman-movie-artificial-dropped-amazon-1236785830/) the film’s portrait of Altman—who I probably don’t need to remind you is the CEO of OpenAI—is unsympathetic, as is the films portrayal of Altman’s [arch nemesis](https://gizmodo.com/on-x-sam-altman-and-elon-musk-trade-barbs-over-who-is-more-full-of-shit-2000642074), Elon Musk. Andrew Garfield plays Altman, while Ike Barinholtz plays Musk. The film is being described as a comedy-drama written by humorist Simon Rich. If you’ve ever seen [Barinholtz in HBO](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrNNC-DqiDU)’[s Eastbound and Down](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrNNC-DqiDU), you can probably form a tantalizing image in your head of a potential Musk-Altman onscreen dynamic. In February, Amazon and OpenAI formed a “[strategic partnership](https://openai.com/index/amazon-partnership/)” under which, Amazon says, $50 billion will be invested in OpenAI, while Amazon Web Services will provide certain cloud resources to OpenAI on an exclusive basis. The *Times* says there were other bids for Artificial, including one by Mubi, which is backed by Sequoia Capital, a major OpenAI investor. A24, Netflix, and Focus Features turned it down, [according to Variety](https://variety.com/2026/film/global/neon-luca-guadagnino-artificial-openai-movie-amazon-1236787919/). *Artificial* reportedly centers on the four days in 2023 when Altman was [fired and then rehired](https://gizmodo.com/openai-rehires-ceo-sam-altman-microsoft-larry-summers-1851041834) as CEO of OpenAI. [IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt37171180/) informs me that Monica Barbaro, one of the [breakout actors from Top Gun: Maverick](https://youtu.be/QnP4XTtp-1A) *,*plays [Mira Murati](https://gizmodo.com/ex-openai-cto-mira-murati-testifies-about-sam-altman-allegedly-lying-to-her-2000755394), and that [Ilya Sutskever](https://gizmodo.com/ilya-sutskever-leaves-openai-1851477658)is played by Yura Borisov, who [everyone in the world loved in](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8H6LMfnSWQ) *Anora**,*another Neon best picture winner *.* Artificial also boasts Italian director Luca Guadagnino, who helmed *Call Me by Your Name *and *Challengers*. Cooper Koch, Cooper Hoffman, and Jason Schwartzman are also among the cast.