Neon has acquired the rights to Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial, after Amazon MGM Studios dropped the film amidst its $50 billion deal with OpenAI.

Starring Andrew Garfield as Sam Altman, the film centres around the days before Altman was fired and then rehired as CEO of OpenAI. The cast also features Academy Award nominees Monica Barbaro and Yura Borisov, alongside Cooper Koch, Cooper Hoffman, Ike Barinholtz, Jason Schwartzman and Mark Rylance.

Neon has reported paid around $20million for the film’s distribution rights.

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The film, written by Simon Rich (SNL, The New Yorker), is expected to portray Sam Altman in an unsympathetic light, with Variety suggesting this was one reason Amazon MGM Studios dropped the film. Before this decision, the film had multiple positive test screenings.

World of Reel suggests “The central figure is reportedly Ilya Sutskever (played by Borisov), the idealistic, somewhat naïve technical mind behind OpenAI, while Altman—played by Andrew Garfield—enters more prominently around the midpoint, depicted as manoeuvring his way to the top. 

Guadagnino has previously collaborated with Amazon MGM Studios on Challengers starring Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor, which was nominated for four Golden Globes, grossing $96m.

After the Hunt, his most recent film, was also made with Amazon and also starred Garfield. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival out of competition, but bombed when it was released late last year, grossing just $9.5m against a $70-$80m production budget.

Artificial is expected to be part of the awards season later this year.

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