Neon Acquires Guadagnino's 'Artificial' From Amazon MGM
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- Neon acquired global rights to Luca Guadagnino's 'Artificial' from Amazon MGM Studios, with the deal negotiated by Alison Cohen alongside CAA Media Finance.
- Amazon MGM declined to release the film roughly two weeks ago, issuing a statement that praised Guadagnino but said 'Artificial will be better served if it were released by a different studio.'
- 'Artificial' chronicles the November 2023 firing and reinstatement of Sam Altman as OpenAI CEO, with Andrew Garfield starring as Altman alongside Mark Rylance, Monica Barbaro, Billie Lourd, Jason Schwartzman, Cooper Koch, Cooper Hoffman, and Ike Barinholtz.
- Amazon announced a $50 billion investment in OpenAI earlier this year, and one source told Deadline the subject matter made the film a 'hot potato' with some studios passing on screening it.
- The film was written by SNL's Simon Rich, shot in San Francisco and Italy, and features an original score by Damon Albarn; it joins Neon's awards slate for this year's Oscar race.
- Neon typically world-premieres Guadagnino's work at Venice, where the director won the Silver Lion for 2022's 'Bones and All,' and the company's current slate also includes new films by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Hirokazu Kore-eda, and Cristian Mungiu.
Why it matters: Amazon's $50 billion OpenAI investment created an obvious conflict with distributing a movie dramatizing OpenAI's most volatile corporate moment, and Neon now inherits a prestige awards contender — one Deadline commenters suggest may have come at fire-sale prices — that will compete in this year's Oscar race.
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