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Amazon has dropped the planned film “Artificial” about OpenAI and its founder Sam Altman – four months after the two companies agreed to a “strategic partnership.”
“Artificial,” directed by Luca Guadagnino and starring Andrew Garfield, was reportedly nearly finished and already in test screenings when Amazon MGM Studios announced Saturday that it was parting ways with the project. In a statement, Amazon indicated the conflict of interest.
“We have the greatest respect and deepest admiration for Luca Guadagnino as an award-winning filmmaker – not to mention our long-standing collaboration, which we hope to continue,” said an Amazon spokesperson. “We believe ‘Artificial’ would be better off with another studio and are working closely with the film team to find a new distributor.”
Billion dollar deal as a stumbling block
“Variety” reports that “Artificial” is already being offered at other studios and streaming services – those that have not entered into triple-digit billion dollar partnerships with OpenAI. In February, Amazon Web Services and OpenAI announced a deal to “develop production-scale generative AI applications and agents” and “provide tailored models to power Amazon’s customer-facing applications.” The deal included another $50 billion Amazon investment in OpenAI – in addition to a $100 billion eight-year contract between the two companies.
With so much money at stake, Amazon was apparently unenthusiastic about fully supporting or even publishing “Artificial.” According to Variety, the film paints a negative and unflattering picture of OpenAI founder Altman. In addition to Garfield, Monica Barbaro, Yura Borisov, Cooper Hoffman, Jason Schwartzman, Mark Rylance and Ike Barinholtz are in front of the camera as Elon Musk.