Forgot Your Password?

New to The Nation? Subscribe

Print subscriber? Activate your online access

.nation-small__b{fill:#fff;}

Why Amazon Ditched Its Prestige Sam Altman Biopic

Artificial had a roster of premier talent and a topical subject—but it no longer fit in with Jeff Bezos’s financial ambitions.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the subject of an unflattering Amazon-produced biopic now in distribution limbo, appears virtually at a conference for Amazon Web Services in April.

With the news that Amazon MGM Studios won’t be releasing Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial, his reportedly scathing biopic of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman starring Andrew Garfield, we are again reminded that, while a movie may cost tens of millions, the ongoing struggle for dominance in Hollywood is a game played in the tens of billions. Currently, Amazon MGM is shopping the movie around for a new buyer, but Netflix, A24, and Focus have all passed.

The film covers the brief ousting of Sam Altman from OpenAI in 2023, and his return to take over the company days later—a restoration that also would turn the major developer of AI technology in the country from a nonprofit into an aggressively for-profit concern. The dramatic interest generated by a strong topical storyline is just one facet of the movie’s potential commercial appeal. In Guadagnino, it boasts an Oscar-nominated director (for his role in helping produce 2017’s Call Me By Your Name). And Artificial’s cast includes talents such as Ike Barinholtz (as Elon Musk), Monica Barbaro, Jason Schwarzman, and Mark Ryall. Yet the film is now in commercial limbo after a few screenings for festival and preview audiences.

No reviews have come out, but word has leaked that it paints a grim and pessimistic portrait of the tech world, and Altman and his arch-rival Musk in particular. An anonymous insider at Amazon told Matt Belloni of Puck, who broke the story, that the final movie took on a “markedly darker tone” that cuts decisively against the broader currents of boosterism extolling the inevitability of AI in both the financial and culture industries.

Amazon MGM Studios, the film and television production arm of Amazon, developed the script and partnered with the creative team every step of the way. Did studio heads simply fail to watch dailies as the film was shot? Belloni, who read the script, calls it a “straightforward indictment of the reckless culture behind the commercialization of artificial intelligence, as well as a drive-by hit on Altman, who is depicted as a liar and a master schemer.” Amazon MGM has only released a milquetoast statement about its abrupt decision to drop the film: “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.”

Given the talent involved, Artificial has the commercial and award-season potential to follow in the footsteps of The Social Network to Oscar renown. That biopic of Mark Zuckerberg made over $224 million in 2010 and won three Oscars after netting eight nominations. But, aside from the film’s prestige credentials, there’s one obvious development that looms over Amazon MGM’s decision: Since work on the film began, Amazon Web Services entered into a $50 billion investment deal with Altman and OpenAI. By contrast, Artificial cost an estimated $40 million to make—which means that even if the film were to be a summer blockbuster, its potential value to Amazon’s streaming platform and film division could never approach what it is investing in OpenAI.

It’s anything but outlandish to suggest that Amazon relinquished distribution of Artificial as a purely economic calculation. The mega=firm’s owner, Jeff Bezos, has notoriously flipped his vanity journalistic property The Washington Post into an outlet of MAGA-friendly agitprop as Amazon Web Services bills the Trump........

© The Nation