For a film about coding, boardrooms and corporate upheaval, Artificial is being sold almost like a horror-thriller. NEON has released the official teaser trailer for Luca Guadagnino‘s drama, with the filmmaker behind Call Me by Your Name, Challengers and Suspiria directing Andrew Garfield as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. A cellar lined with rifles, talk of collapsing industries and the suggestion that Pandora’s box has already been opened make for an appropriately unsettling pitch in the middle of today’s very real anxiety over AI. Watch the trailer above and get the details below.
Andrew Garfield’s Sam Altman Opens Pandora’s Box
The trailer begins with the promise of technology: “We’ve created a machine that will solve the world’s problems. We don’t teach it. It teaches itself. We’re gonna call it ChatGPT.”
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It doesn’t take long for that optimism to curdle. Garfield’s Altman moves through a luxurious home and into its underground depths as his voiceover paints an enormous, and rather terrifying, picture of what comes next.
“We opened Pandora’s box together,” he says. “The future is inevitable. Countries will fall. Industries are gonna collapse. And we get to be the ones to shepherd people into this new world. I’m so excited to see it.”
It’s a striking way to introduce a film about OpenAI at a moment when debates over artificial intelligence are moving well beyond Silicon Valley. Jobs, copyright, misinformation, creative industries and just how much power should sit with the companies developing these systems are now part of the broader cultural argument.
The Cast Taking the OpenAI Coup to the Screen
Written by Saturday Night Live scribe Simon Rich, the film focuses heavily on the extraordinary OpenAI power struggle of November 2023, when the company’s board abruptly fired Altman as CEO before an employee revolt and days of chaos led to his reinstatement.
Yura Borisov plays OpenAI co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, one of the central figures in Altman’s removal, while Monica Barbaro plays former chief technology officer Mira Murati. Mark Rylance appears as computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, and Ike Barinholtz takes on Elon Musk, who co-founded OpenAI before later falling out with the company.
Cooper Hoffman plays OpenAI co-founder and chairman Greg Brockman, with Jason Schwartzman, Chris O’Dowd, Zosia Mamet, Cooper Koch and Billie Lourd also among the ensemble.
How Garfield Built His Sam Altman
There’s an interesting bit of tech-movie déjà vu in Garfield’s casting. Sixteen years after playing Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin in David Fincher’s The Social Network, he’s once again portraying a real-life Silicon Valley figure caught at the centre of an enormous technological shift.
Garfield never met Altman before taking on the role. He instead worked from the screenplay, interviews, transcripts and the considerable amount of footage and reporting already available on the OpenAI CEO.
Speaking to Esquire, Garfield described Altman’s worldview as treating everything as a game, with winning framed around the belief that his side is ultimately the one doing good.
The actor also had a particularly stark take on the psychology required to wield that kind of technological power: “Anyone who takes on that level of responsibility for a company or a technology … [must have] a certain ability to dissociate.”
Garfield approached the character through Carl Jung’s concept of the shadow self, searching for qualities in Altman that he could recognise within himself, including the ones he would instinctively rather reject.
It was an uncomfortable enough exercise that he was happy to leave the character behind. Garfield said he felt similarly after playing Hank in Guadagnino’s After the Hunt, explaining that he is much more comfortable trying to be community-minded, a good friend and someone who brings warmth into the lives of those around him.
Amazon Drops Artificial, Then NEON Steps In
The film’s journey to cinemas has become almost as interesting as the boardroom chaos it depicts. Amazon MGM Studios developed and financed Artificial, spending a reported $40 million on the film before unexpectedly deciding not to release it in June. The nearly completed picture was instead put on the market and ultimately acquired by NEON.
The timing immediately attracted attention. Only months earlier, Amazon had announced a major strategic partnership with OpenAI that included a planned investment of up to $50 billion. Altman was also among the guests at Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ wedding in Italy in 2025.
Adding another wrinkle, Variety reported that the film had tested positively overall before Amazon’s departure, although Altman and Musk emerged as its least sympathetic characters for audiences.
Amazon denied that Artificial‘s subject matter drove the decision. In its statement, the studio expressed strong respect for Guadagnino and said it believed the film would be better served by another distributor.
Given Amazon’s increasingly valuable relationship with OpenAI, however, its decision to hand over a completed film centred on Altman inevitably became part of the conversation surrounding Artificial.
Garfield and Hoffman on Amazon Walking Away
Garfield addressed the situation after NEON acquired the movie, giving Variety a notably diplomatic assessment of Amazon’s exit.
“I think there are certain things that fit certain places and don’t fit other places, and they were nothing but supportive,” he said, also pointing to Guadagnino’s strong relationship with the studio and expressing gratitude that Amazon helped Artificial ultimately land somewhere he felt was right for the film.
Hoffman had a rather different reaction. Discussing the situation with Variety, as also reported by The Guardian, he said: “I’m shocked they picked it up in the first place … When they dropped it, it was kinda like, ‘Oh, yeah, that kinda actually makes sense.’”
He was considerably happier about what happened next, telling the outlet how much he likes NEON and how pleased he was that the distributor stepped in.
Whatever ultimately drove Amazon’s decision, it gives Artificial an almost too-perfect piece of behind-the-scenes context: a film examining the people, money and power surrounding OpenAI found its own release caught up in questions about the enormous corporate relationships surrounding OpenAI.
When Is Artificial Coming Out?
Artificial will make its world premiere at the New York Film Festival on October 5 before opening in select US cinemas on Christmas Day. NEON will expand the release more widely in January 2027.
Guadagnino’s film runs 140 minutes, with Blur and Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn providing the score and original songs.
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