Amazon MGM Studios has severed ties with Luca Guadagnino's Artificial, dropping the nearly complete biographical drama from distribution. The decision, made at the directive of Amazon MGM chief Mike Hopkins, comes months after Amazon committed $50 billion to a multi-year strategic partnership with OpenAI in February 2026.
Artificial, written by SNL alum Simon Rich, centers on the 2023 period when Sam Altman was abruptly fired from OpenAI and rehired within days. Andrew Garfield plays Altman in the film, which also features Monica Barbaro as former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, Yura Borisov as former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, and Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk. The ensemble extends to Cooper Hoffman, Jason Schwartzman, Billie Lourd, Zosia Mamet, and Mark Rylance.
Shot in San Francisco and Italy, Artificial had completed multiple test screenings before Amazon's decision. According to Variety, the screenings "went down very positively," though The Hollywood Reporter noted that depictions of Altman and Musk were "not believed to be wholly flattering."
The film is now being shopped to other studios, which screened the project as of June 19. For Guadagnino, the split ends a run of three consecutive Amazon MGM collaborations, following Challengers (2024) and After the Hunt.
The conflict between corporate investment and creative content has rarely been this direct. Amazon's $50 billion bet on OpenAI made distributing a film that portrays the company's leadership as complicated figures untenable. Whether another distributor picks up Artificial will determine how boldly Hollywood is still willing to move on tech's most powerful figures.