Artificial Lands at Neon After Amazon Passes

The Hollywood Reporter says Neon picked up Luca Guadagnino's "Artificial" — a drama about OpenAI founders Sam Altman and Ilya Sutskever — after Amazon MGM Studios decided not to release it.

Neon paid nothing up front but committed $15 million for marketing. The film cost $40 million to make. Amazon had announced a planned $50 billion investment in OpenAI months before selling the project.

"Artificial" premieres Monday at the New York Film Festival. It opens in theaters Christmas Day.

The movie traces decades in the lives of Sutskever (Yura Borisov) and Altman (Andrew Garfield), from their early bond in the Obama-era tech optimism to their falling out as the technology's dangers become clear. Guadagnino shot on 35mm film and says no AI was used in production.

THR reports that the script, by Simon Rich, was more broadly comic before Guadagnino's darker tone took over. Ike Barinholtz plays Elon Musk as a punchline. Monica Barbaro appears as former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati.

Amazon had developed the project and collaborated creatively. Producer Jennifer Fox told THR the rationale Amazon gave was: "We believe that Artificial will be better served if it were released by a different studio." Guadagnino still calls Amazon "family" despite the sale.

Rumors of reshoots or budget overruns are false, per THR. Production materials show a 34-day shoot in September 2025 that finished on schedule and on budget. One insider said Amazon made it "for too much money" at the $40 million figure.

Other studios including Netflix, Searchlight and A24 screened the film but passed. Speculation that they were spooked by Big Tech ties persists. Guadagnino told THR: "Once you understand the nature of every company's business … some decisions are not the decisions they would've made in a vacuum."

Garfield, who also played Eduardo Saverin in "The Social Network," said this role scratched an old itch. He praised Amazon for not killing the project outright. "I was kind of excited — it felt spicy," he told THR.

The filmmakers hired outside counsel to vet every scene. Key moments were backed by Ronan Farrow's New Yorker profile of Altman. Garfield said the goal was to "speak to something universal and deeper about the anxiety that we're all feeling about the future."

• Andrew Garfield
• Artificial
• Luca Guadagnino
• Neon
• OpenAI
• Sam Altman