Neon Circling Luca Guadagnino’s Sam Altman Movie ‘Artificial’

Following Amazon MGM’s announcement that they wouldn’t be releasing Artificial, Luca Guadagnino‘s new movie on OpenAI’s Sam Altman, we understand that Neon is in talks to pick it up.

This is after it seemed the film was heading to Mubi.

One source told us that the movie in its subject matter was a hot potato with some studios even passing on screening the film.

A deal figure wasn’t disclosed. Amazon MGM made its announcement on Artificial two weeks ago, issuing the following statement: “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. We believe that Artificial will be better served if it were released by a different studio and are working closely with the filmmaking team to find the film a new home.”

While Amazon didn’t get into further detail as to the motivations behind its move with Artificial, it’s been widely noted that Amazon announced a $50 billion investment in OpenAI earlier this year.

We heard that the film was tested by Amazon MGM Studios, and the audience reaction was good. The studio remains in business with Guadagnino despite unloading Artificial; the Oscar-nominated filmmaker having had four projects there including Suspiria, Bones and All (during the pre MGM acquisition days), Challengers and After the Hunt.

Directed by Guadagnino from a script by Simon Rich, Artificial explores the turbulent period in 2023 when Altman was fired and rehired as OpenAI’s in a matter of days. Andrew Garfield stars as Altman, leading a cast that also includes Mark Rylance, Andrew Garfield, Yura Borisov, Monica Barbaro, Billie Lourd, Jason Schwartzman, Cooper Koch, Cooper Hoffman and Ike Barinholtz. The project came together following Guadagnino’s work with Amazon on the films Challengers and After the Hunt. 

Reps for Neon declined to comment. Puck’s Matt Belloni was first to the news of the acquisition talks.