Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Artificial’: First Reactions
Luca Guadagnino’s film *Artificial*, about the 2023 OpenAI leadership crisis, premiered at the New York Film Festival, prompting sharply divided early reactions. Some viewers praised its dark comedy, urgent themes and Andrew Garfield’s portrayal of Sam Altman, while others found it tonally uneven and unfocused.
The biographical dramedy depicts the five days in November 2023 when Altman was fired and then rehired. Garfield stars alongside Yura Borisov as Ilya Sutskever, Monica Barbaro as Mira Murati and Cooper Hoffman as Greg Brockman; Ike Barinholtz plays Elon Musk. Neon acquired the film after Amazon MGM dropped it and committed to spend $15 million on marketing; it is due in cinemas on 25 December.
- *Artificial* premiered to mixed early reactions.
- Andrew Garfield plays Sam Altman.
- The film opens on 25 December.
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Luca Guadagnino's Artificial dramatises a dramatic five-day period in November 2023 when Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, was suddenly fired by the company's board and then quickly rehired. This incident attracted global attention because OpenAI sits at the centre of debates about artificial intelligence's development and control.
Andrew Garfield plays Altman in a film directed by Guadagnino, the acclaimed Italian film-maker behind Call Me By Your Name and Suspiria. The supporting cast includes Yura Borisov as Ilya Sutskever, Monica Barbaro as Mira Murati, Cooper Hoffman as Greg Brockman, and Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk, recreating key figures involved in the crisis.
The film is scheduled for release in cinemas on 25 December after Neon acquired it from Amazon MGM Studios, who had dropped the project. Neon committed to spending $15 million on marketing the film.