Amazon Drops Guadagnino's OpenAI Film 'Artificial'
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- Amazon MGM will not release Luca Guadagnino's film "Artificial," saying it would be "better served if it were released by a different studio" and that it is working closely with the filmmaking team to find the film a new home.
- The film, written by Simon Rich, explores Sam Altman's OpenAI and the 2023 period when Altman was fired and rehired in a matter of days, and was to reunite Guadagnino with Amazon after "Challengers" and "After The Hunt."
- The ensemble cast includes Mark Rylance, Andrew Garfield, Yura Borisov, Monica Barbaro, Billie Lourd, Jason Schwartzman, Cooper Koch, Cooper Hoffman, and Ike Barinholtz.
- Puck first reported Amazon's exit from the title, with other studios currently being screened the film and talks about its future ongoing.
- Bezos at a Paris tech conference dismissed concerns that AI would displace human jobs, saying AI would create a "labour shortage" — a view the UK's Trades Union Congress has publicly contradicted, warning AI could repeat "the disaster of deindustrialisation."
Why it matters: Amazon's decision to drop a high-profile film about OpenAI — while holding a recently announced $50 billion stake in the company (per the source) — creates a striking content-business conflict. With other studios already screening the picture, it likely finds a new distributor quickly, but the move illustrates how Amazon's AI investments increasingly intersect with stories its studio produces.
