Neon has acquired global rights to Luca Guadagnino's Artificial, giving the film a new home after Amazon MGM Studios said it would not release it. The move places the project on Neon's awards slate for this year and ends a brief search for a distributor after Amazon MGM stepped aside two weeks earlier.
The film centers on the days leading up to Sam Altman's firing and reinstatement as CEO of OpenAI, with Andrew Garfield playing Altman. Written by Simon Rich, Artificial was shot in San Francisco and Italy and brings together Mark Rylance, Yura Borisov, Monica Barbaro, Billie Lourd, Jason Schwartzman, Cooper Koch, Cooper Hoffman and Ike Barinholtz. In Hollywood terms, that gives Neon one of the more watched packages of the season, and one with a subject that has already drawn attention far beyond the usual awards crowd.
The rights sale was negotiated by Alison Cohen for Neon with CAA Media Finance and Amazon MGM Studios. Amazon MGM had tested the film and got a good audience reaction, but still said it believed Artificial would be better served by a different studio and that it was working with the filmmaking team to find the film a new home. That is the kind of decision that usually says as much about a company’s instincts as it does about the movie itself: a title can test well and still be judged too tricky for the distributor holding it.
The subject matter helps explain why. Artificial returns to 2023, when OpenAI's leadership crisis unfolded around Altman’s firing and quick return, and it arrives after Amazon announced a $50 billion investment in OpenAI earlier in 2024. Guadagnino has already worked with Amazon MGM on four projects, but this one moved into a different lane after the studio said no release was planned. Neon now has the film, the cast and the timing, and the next question is whether it can turn the acquisition into a release that carries into this year's Oscar race.
For Garfield, the switch matters because the role is no longer tied to a studio opting out of the title. For Neon, it is a clean bet that a film with a live-wire business story, a major lead performance and a loaded cast can still break through when the right company takes over. The release date is still unconfirmed, but the new home is in place.
