Neon acquires Sam Altman film after Amazon drops project

Neon has acquired Artificial, the nearly completed $40 million drama about Sam Altman, after Amazon MGM Studios stepped away from the project despite only months earlier striking a major partnership with OpenAI. The film tracks the turbulent 2023 stretch when Altman was fired by OpenAI and brought back days later, a corporate crisis that rattled employees and intensified scrutiny of the company’s governance.

Simon Rich wrote the screenplay, and Luca Guadagnino directed a cast that includes Andrew Garfield as Altman, Monica Barbaro as former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati, Yura Borisov as former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever and Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk. Cooper Hoffman, Jason Schwartzman, Cooper Koch, Billie Lourd, Zosia Mamet, Angus Imrie, Chris O’Dowd and Mark Rylance also appear in the project, which had been in final post-production when Neon emerged as the likely buyer.

Amazon said it believed Artificial would be “better served” by another studio and said it was working with the filmmakers to find a new home. The timing drew attention because Amazon announced a $50 billion strategic partnership with OpenAI in February 2026, including an initial $15 billion investment, tying one of the tech giants financing the broader AI boom to the company at the center of the film’s story.

The project had been eyeing a festival launch at SXSW in Austin, Texas, before Amazon pulled away. With Neon now involved, the film could instead be positioned for the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, where Guadagnino has premiered previous films. Guadagnino has said AI is changing the identity of the world, a line that fits the subject matter even as the business around it keeps shifting.

Neon, Amazon MGM Studios and CAA Media Finance did not immediately comment.