Artificial, the OpenAI film Amazon dropped, brings Andrew Garfield as Sam Altman to US theaters at Christmas

The company that spent five days trying to decide who should run OpenAI is now the subject of a Luca Guadagnino film, and the film nearly vanished before anyone outside a screening room could see it. Artificial casts Andrew Garfield as Sam Altman, the OpenAI chief executive the board fired and then took back, and it reaches theaters from Neon after Amazon MGM Studios, its original backer, let it go. The story behind the release is almost as pointed as the one on screen. Amazon dropped the film several days after signing a multibillion-dollar agreement with OpenAI, saying the picture would do better at another studio. Altman has denied any role in that decision. Netflix, Focus Features and Warner Bros. were among the buyers who screened it and passed.