Jack Gruber | USA TODAY NETWORK / Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for BFI
Andrew Garfield will play OpenAI CEO Sam Altman
Amazon MGM Studios will no longer be releasing Artificial, the biopic about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman that’s directed by Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name, Challengers) and starring Andrew Garfield. Reports indicate the project is “nearly finished.”
Instead of releasing the film themselves, Amazon MGM Studios — who distributed Luca Guadagnino’s most recent project, 2025’s After The Hunt — will be shopping Artificial to other studios.
In addition to the Academy Award-nominated Andrew Garfield as Altman, Artificial — which will follow Altman’s firing and rehiring at the AI company behind ChatGPT in 2023 — also stars Monica Barbaro, Yura Borisov, Cooper Koch, Cooper Hoffman, Ike Barinholtz, and Jason Schwartzman.
Amazon’s decision to sell off Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial raises eyebrows given their $50B deal with OpenAI
“We have the utmost respect and admiration for Luca Guadagnino as an award-winning filmmaker — not to mention a longstanding relationship that we hope to continue. 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,” a spokesperson for Amazon said.
Given that Amazon signed a massive deal to expand OpenAI’s use of Amazon Web Services and develop custom AI models back in February, which included a $50 billion investment into the company, the decision to part ways with the project has raised eyebrows.
“I don’t even care about the movie but this is still f—– up. Amazon is so evil,” one response to the news read.
“This is the reason why Amazon will sell the movie. Rumors say that it makes the CEO of OpenAI look very bad, who is an investor in Amazon for 50 Trillion. Bezos didn’t want to upset him,” a second theorized.
“Genuinely evil and anti art in every single way. Corporate fascism at its finest,” a third summarized.
“Oh this film is going to be EXTREMELY anti-AI and anti-billionaire if Amazon pulled out so late in production. I’m sat,” a fourth anticipated.
https://t.co/K6aFlNyNrN pic.twitter.com/TsiLrsVu22
— April, Lost but Peaking (@AprilTurtle_) June 19, 2026
Amazon: Mr. Guadagnino we’d like you to make a movie about the rise of AI—
No not like that. https://t.co/ziVJgNahgP— Chris Youngman © (@AlsikkanTV) June 19, 2026
Bleak. https://t.co/1A7v8HJHeo
— Darren Mooney (@Darren_Mooney) June 19, 2026
Altman, who has been with OpenAI since it launched in 2015 and has been CEO since 2019, has a reported net worth of $3B. ChatGPT crossed 1 billion monthly active users in June 2026 and is the fastest consumer app to reach 100 million users in history.