When Luca Guadagnino's "Artificial" has its world premiere at Alice Tully Hall on Monday, it arrives at the New York Film Festival with an origin story almost as strange as its plot: the studio that commissioned it, shot it and nearly finished editing it is no longer involved, because that studio also happens to be one of OpenAI's largest investors.
The film dramatizes five chaotic days in November 2023, when OpenAI's board abruptly fired chief executive Sam Altman, only to reinstate him days later after employees threatened to quit en masse. Andrew Garfield stars as Altman, with Yura Borisov as co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, Monica Barbaro as former chief technology officer Mira Murati and Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk. Cooper Hoffman, Jason Schwartzman, Chris O'Dowd and Mark Rylance round out an ensemble working from a screenplay by "Miracle Workers" creator Simon Rich, with a score by Damon Albarn.
It is, on paper, a departure for Guadagnino, who built his recent reputation on the sun-drenched love triangle of "Challengers" and the aching period romance of "Queer," not corporate boardrooms. Here the ambition and betrayal play out not in a relationship but inside a nonprofit-turned-tech-giant, with a cast that treats Silicon Valley's power struggle with the same intensity he has previously reserved for matters of the heart.
A Studio Backs Away
Amazon MGM Studios had acquired "Artificial," shepherded it through production and was preparing a release when, in June, the studio dropped the nearly completed film, saying it would "be better served if it were released by a different studio." The statement followed Amazon's $50 billion partnership with OpenAI, announced that February, which put the company in the awkward position of potentially distributing an unflattering dramatization of the AI lab's internal meltdown. Test screenings had reportedly gone well, though audiences came away finding Altman and Musk the least sympathetic characters on screen.
Neon, the independent distributor behind "Parasite" and "Anora," picked up global rights and set a Dec. 25 theatrical release. The company put out a first teaser trailer on Sept. 8, in which Garfield's Altman muses about the creation of ChatGPT in language closer to horror than hagiography, warning of a future in which nations fall and entire industries collapse.
The swap in distributors did more than change which studio's logo opens the film. It turned "Artificial" into a case study in how deeply AI companies have woven themselves into the businesses that might otherwise cover or dramatize them critically — Altman, notably, also has a personal relationship with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, adding another layer to a studio's decision to step back from a film about his ouster.
Judgment Day at Lincoln Center
The film's circuitous path to distribution has only sharpened interest in its festival debut. New York Film Festival director Dennis Lim has called it one of the marquee events of this year's lineup.
"If ever there was a movie for its moment, this is it."
Dennis Lim, director, New York Film Festival
Lim has also described the film as telling its story with "clear-eyed horror, dark humor, and existential urgency" — a description that tracks with the tenor of the teaser and with accounts of those early test screenings. Garfield and Guadagnino are expected at Monday's premiere, where "Artificial" screens as part of a 32-film main slate that also includes new work from Mike Leigh, Pedro Almodóvar and Ryûsuke Hamaguchi.
The 64th New York Film Festival opened Sept. 25 with the U.S. premiere of James Gray's "Paper Tiger" and runs through Oct. 12, when it closes with Ava DuVernay's civil rights documentary "14th." Against that backdrop, "Artificial" stands out less for its pedigree than for the industry fight that nearly kept it off any screen at all — a dynamic festival audiences are expected to be well aware of as they file into Alice Tully Hall.
What happens next will test how much appetite exists, inside and outside Hollywood, for a holiday-season release built around an unflattering portrait of the industry now reshaping it. "Artificial" opens in limited theaters on Christmas Day, with a wider expansion to follow in January — timed, whether by design or coincidence, to land just as awards voters start filling out their ballots.
