Neon bought it. Finally.
Luca Guadagnino’s “Artificial”, that starry, bruising drama about Sam Altman, landed with indie distributor Neon after Amazon MGM dropped it. Abruptly. Just a few weeks ago.
People see what this really is. It’s the fallout. Amazon just inked a $50 billion deal with OpenAI. Now they’re pulling a film that tears their new partner apart at the seams.
Andrew Garfield plays Altman. Monica Barbaro is Mira Murati. Yura Borisov handles Ilya Sutskever. Ike Barinholtz shows up as Elon Musk. Simon Rich wrote the script. He’s from SNL. They called it “The Social Network for the AI era.” That’s the pitch.
It focuses on that crazy weekend in 2023. The board fired Altman. Then they panicked and put him back. Fast. It was shot in San Francisco, mostly. Some Italy. It’s Guadagnino’s third time working with Amazon MGM, after “Challengers” and “After the Hunt”.
The tech oligarchy has truly radical control.
That’s how the director framed it. On an Italian talk show, not hiding his frustration. He talked about a small group running the show. Real radical control over places like the US, or really, the world. He saw it while filming in SF. The inequality is stark.
The timing isn’t just convenient. It’s causal. Amazon sealed that huge OpenAI partnership in February.
Here’s how that deal looks: $15 billion upfront for preferred stock. Then $35 billion later. But only if OpenAI hits certain goals. Or goes public.
They also locked up the cloud agreement. AWS becomes the exclusive third-party distributor for Frontier, OpenAI’s enterprise tool. OpenAI even promised to run workloads on Amazon’s Trainium chips. Nvidia loses a chunk of business here.
Amazon gave a polite reason for dumping the movie. They said it would “be better served by a different studio.” Called Guadagnino “award-winning.” Swore it wasn’t about Altman’s portrayal.
No one believed them. Of course they didn’t.
Why Did Amazon Panic?
The test screenings were supposedly fine.
Fine doesn’t mean people liked Altman or Musk. An insider said they came out as the least sympathetic characters. Viewers hated them. Another buyer told Matt Belloni it was “dark.” Grim, even. It made people worry about the future.
Amazon thought the final cut was darker than the script suggested. So they cut.
Hollywood held it like a hot potato after that. Netflix said no. Focus Features said no. A24 watched it. Didn’t commit. Probably because Thrive Capital — backed by Josh Kushner — sits on the OpenAI board. Skin in the game, even if A24 stayed quiet.
Warner Bros’ Clockwork label backed off too. Then Mubi and Neon stepped up.
Neon won.
Neon is on a run that defies logic.
They backed seven straight Palme d’Or winners. From “Parasite” to “Fjord.” They won Best Picture twice now. “Parasite”. “Anora”. They know how to move these things. Neon wants an awards push. The festival premiere date isn’t set, but the machine is turning.
Meanwhile, OpenAI filed paperwork. Confidentially. They want to list on the stock market. They think they’re worth over $850 billion. If they hit that mark, Amazon gets the rest of its $35 billion chunk.
Does this feel coincidental? Probably not. A movie about who controls technology, blocked by the people wanting to control it.
It’s almost too on-theme to ignore.
Except no one wants to ignore it now. Neon is rolling with it. See how that ends. 🍿
