Neon Rescues Sam Altman Movie After Amazon Drops It

Neon, the independent studio behind 'Parasite', will release 'Artificial', a Sam Altman biopic, after Amazon MGM dropped the film. The comedy-drama portrays Altman and Elon Musk unsympathetically, and Amazon's exit followed its $50 billion strategic partnership with OpenAI.

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.