Amazon MGM has ditched its nearly finished film about controversial OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman after becoming massively entangled in Altman’s company.
In February, Amazon committed to investing an eye-popping $50 billion in a partnership deal that would vastly expand OpenAI’s use of Amazon Web Services and develop custom AI models for Amazon. The companies also signed a $38 billion cloud computing deal just last year.
Amazon is now hunting for a “new home” for Oscar-nominated director Luca Guadagnino’s celeb-studded movie Artificial, starring Andrew Garfield, that focuses on the time Altman was briefly fired and rehired as head of OpenAI in 2023. The film had been slated for release later this year or in early 2027, and is expected to be in contention for awards season.
“We have the utmost respect and admiration for Luca Guadagnino as an award-winning filmmaker—not to mention a longstanding relationship that we hope to continue,” an Amazon spokesperson told Variety. “We believe that Artificial will be better served if it were released by a different studio.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to Guadagnino for comment.
The director was handed the bad news by Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios chief Mike Hopkins, who made the decision to dump the movie. Hopkins reportedly pulled the plug after viewing a cut of the film, as Puck first reported.
A draft of the script portrays Altman as a schemer intent on turning OpenAI from a nonprofit to a money-making machine, with one computer scientist describing the CEO as “one of the most manipulative people on the planet,” according to Puck.
The film, written by Saturday Night Live alum Simon Rich, also stars Anora actor Yura Borisov as Israeli engineer Ilya Sutskever, who co-founded OpenAI as a nonprofit. Jason Schwartzman, Mark Rylance, Zosia Mamet, and Ike Barinholtz (as Elon Musk) co-star.
Artificial would have been Amazon MGM’s third collaboration with Guadagnino, following After the Hunt and Challengers.
Amazon isn’t saying why it’s dumping the film, although the company would clearly have a conflict of interest in how it portrays a major new industry partner. The apparently dark view of Altman would also be awkward for Amazon, especially as both Altman and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos have been sidling up to 80-year-old Donald Trump.
Altman and Bezos are friends, and Altman attended Bezos’ Venetian wedding last year. They’re both busy cultivating a positive relationship with Trump and his administration. Altman was one of a number of U.S. tech leaders who appeared with Trump at the G7 summit earlier this week, urging world leaders to embrace AI.
Amazon’s Hopkins was at the red carpet premiere of Melania, the gushing documentary on the first lady, which took place at the temporarily Trump-seized Kennedy Center earlier this year. The film cost Amazon some $75 million to release—and flopped big time.
