Amazon drops Luca Guadagnino’s OpenAI drama despite Andrew Garfield casting

Luca Guadagnino’s OpenAI film has been dropped by Amazon, just months after the company announced a $50billion investment in the AI firm.

- READ MORE: All the times Luca Guadagnino made our jaws drop

Last summer, it was revealed that the director – known for films including Challengers , Call Me By Your Name   and  Queer   – had signed on to make  Artificial , a film that would document the saga of Sam Altman being fired and swiftly rehired as the CEO of OpenAI in 2023.

Amazon MGM Studios were the studio behind the project, but today (June 19), it was reported by  Puck   that they had dropped the film, despite it nearly being completed. It will reportedly now be offered to other studios.

“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,” an Amazon spokesperson told  Variety . “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.”

In February, Amazon and OpenAI announced a major partnership worth $50billion, designed to expand OpenAI’s use of Amazon Web Services and to develop custom AI models for Amazon platforms.

The film will focus on the events of November 2023, in which the OpenAI board fired Altman after concerns over safety and accusations of abusive behaviour. Just five days later, after pushback from OpenAI employees and an intervention from Microsoft, OpenAI reinstated Altman as CEO and replaced most of the board members that had initially fired him.

Artificial is likely to find a new home, with  Andrew Garfield  playing Altman,  A Complete Unknown ’s Monica Barbaro as former OpenAI executive Mira Murati,  Anora ’s Yura Borisov as OpenAI scientist Ilya Sutskever and Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk.

It would have been Guadagnino’s third collaboration with Amazon MGM Studios, after acclaimed tennis drama  Challengers , starring  Zendaya , Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor, and campus drama  After The Hunt , with  Julia Roberts , Ayo Edebiri and Garfield.

The director is also  working on a “new interpretation” of Bret Easton Ellis’ novel  American Psycho , with  Austin Butler reportedly in line to star as Patrick Bateman .

The post Luca Guadagnino’s OpenAI drama dropped by Amazon following $50billion partnership deal appeared first on NME .

_Originally reported by [NME](https://www.nme.com/news/film/luca-guadagninos-openai-drama-dropped-by-amazon-following-50billion-partnership-deal-3951967?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=luca-guadagninos-openai-drama-dropped-by-amazon-following-50billion-partnership-deal)._