Neon acquires 'Artificial,' the Sam Altman film Amazon wouldn't release

Amazon spent three years and $40 million building an unflattering movie about the man running its newest $50 billion business partner. Then it got cold feet. Now "Artificial," Luca Guadagnino's dramatization of the week OpenAI fired and rehired Sam Altman, has a new home: Neon, the indie studio, has locked down the deal, following weeks of will-they-won't-they that played out almost entirely in public.Andrew Garfield stars as Altman. Ike Barinholtz plays Elon Musk. Monica Barbaro, Yura Borisov and Mark Rylance fill out a cast that looks built for exactly the campaign Neon is now promising: a release before the year is out, followed by a real shot at the Oscar race.

Why a $50 billion partnership made the film impossible to keep

Amazon MGM greenlit "Artificial" in 2023 and stuck with it through test screenings that, by all accounts, went over well. The trouble started in February, when Amazon signed an expansive multi-year deal with OpenAI worth $50 billion, stacked on top of an existing $38 billion cloud contract.

A few months later, Amazon quietly put the film up for sale, saying only that it would be "better served" by another studio. No mention of the OpenAI money anywhere in the statement.That omission told its own story. People who've seen the film say it doesn't flatter Altman or Musk. Releasing a film like that about your own multibillion-dollar partner is an awkward look, test screenings or not.

Neon beat out Mubi, whose top backer is an OpenAI investor

CAA Media Finance ran the sale, and the list of studios that passed reads like a who's-who: Netflix, A24, Focus, and Warner Bros.'

newer label Clockwork all took a look and walked away. Mubi stayed in the running longer, which raised its own eyebrows given that Mubi's biggest backer, Sequoia Capital, also has money in OpenAI.Neon won it instead, adding "Artificial" to a slate that already includes seven straight Palme d'Or winners and recent Oscar wins for "Parasite" and "Anora." A Venice premiere looks likely, given how often Guadagnino has launched films there.Terms of the sale weren't revealed. What is clear: the studio that bankrolled Altman's worst week no longer wanted to be the one telling it.