There was apparently one threat that the centibillion dollar AI firm OpenAI, and its multitrillion dollar partner Amazon, could not countenance: an unflattering biopic about Sam Altman, the former venture’s CEO and cofounder.
Though it was nearly completed, the Luca Guadagnino directed film, titled “Artificial,” was suddenly dumped by Amazon-owned MGM Studios, Puck News first reported Friday.
Amazon’s reasoning: that the Altman biopic “will be better served if it were released by a different studio.”
“We have the utmost respect and admiration for Luca Guadagnino as an award-winning film-maker — not to mention a longstanding relationship that we hope to continue,” it added, hollowly, in a statement to Variety.
Forgive us for finding the timing to be no coincidence. In February, Amazon pledged to invest $50 billion in OpenAI as part of a key funding round that helped raise OpenAI’s valuation to over $700 billion.
OpenAI also agreed to buy $38 billion in cloud computing from Amazon last year. And Altman is chummy with Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, attending his glitzy Venice wedding.
Reports suggest that the dropped film, with its double-entendre name “Artificial,” wasn’t going to be a hagiography like “Melania,” the $75 million documentary about the current First Lady that Amazon made and distributed and turned out to be a total flop (and which Bezos still defends as a good investment). Instead, it’s anticipated to be more along the lines of “The Social Network,” the much-lauded 2010 film that ripped apart Facebook cofounder Mark Zuckerberg.
Variety reported this weekend that the “picture is rumored to be portraying Altman as a pathological liar,” with perhaps the only flattering aspect for Altman being that he’s portrayed by Andrew Garfield. It apparently did positively in test screenings.
If Altman and/or Bezos pressured the movie into being dropped, it would hardly be beyond the pale in this age when the US president viciously attacks some of his most vocal critics like Stephen Colbert, only for Colbert’s show to be mysteriously cancelled after his broadcaster’s parent company was taken over by pro-Trump billionaires. Or when Elon Musk uses his social media site to elevate far right conspiracies and suspend journalists who criticize him (when he’s not fantasizing about their deaths, that is.)
In all, this is less outright scandalous than it is a testament to the fragility, if not cravenness, of a tech elite who view themselves as increasingly untouchable, and are now closing ranks. The movie industry is being devoured by the tech industry. And the rise of AI means that all these tech companies are more deeply involved with each other than ever before. An attack on one of them is an attack on all of them.
“Artificial” is still being shopped around, but its odds of getting widespread distribution like “The Social Network” did are looking slim after Netflix, Focus Features, and A24 all passed on acquiring it.
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