EXCLUSIVE: Luca Guadagnino‘s much-talked about Artificial is expected to forgo a traditional fall festival rollout, we understand.
The Sam Altman movie, starring Andrew Garfield, has been the subject of intense media scrutiny following Amazon‘s decision to ditch the film last month. Neon has boldly stepped in to release the project, and recent reporting has speculated about potential fall festival berths.
We understand there has been interest from multiple A-list festivals, and while things can change, we hear the film isn’t likely to go down the standard festival route. That doesn’t mean it won’t pop up at a festival in some form (we bet it will), but it won’t have the traditional launch with the bells and whistles of a red carpet, press conference, junkets etc
This probably makes sense for a movie whose subject and handling by Amazon has seen it become a lightning rod for debate and speculation. A similar release strategy also worked well for a movie like Marty Supreme.
Oscar nominee Garfield stars as the controversial OpenAI CEO. Amazon stepped away from the project soon after it struck a massive partnership with the tech company in February to expand OpenAI’s use of Amazon Web Services and develop custom AI models, which included a $50BN investment on Amazon’s part.
As first reported by Puck, Neon picked the film up without having to surrender an MG. Instead, it’s covering P&A via a straight distribution deal. This is seen as friendly to the creatives with Amazon potentially prepared to write off a chunk of its spend and for key creatives and filmmakers to get their backend should the movie make money.
Neon is expected to release the film later this year and has said it will give it an Oscar campaign. There is bullishness among some of those close to the movie that it should at least feature in the awards conversation.
Oscar nominees Monica Barbaro, Mark Rylance and Yura Borisov are among the stacked cast in the film which chronicles the days leading up to the sudden firing and reinstatement of Altman as CEO of OpenAI, “as the fate of who gets to control the technology at the center of an AI arms race hangs in the balance”.
The script, penned by SNL alum Simon Rich, is produced by Rich and Guadagnino, alongside Heyday Films’ David Heyman and Jeffrey Clifford, and Jennifer Fox.
Neon and reps declined to comment.
English (US) ·