Amazon has walked away from a nearly completed movie about OpenAI chief Sam Altman, just months after announcing a partnership with his company.
According to The Independent, the film is directed by Luca Guadagnino and stars Andrew Garfield as Altman, described as the controversial OpenAI founder. Screen Daily reports the project is titled "Artificial," and that Amazon MGM Studios is now offloading it rather than releasing it.
IGN notes the timing: Amazon is abandoning the project only months after its OpenAI deal, despite the movie being nearly finished. Yellow.com frames the move as Amazon "burying" the completed biopic following what it characterizes as a roughly $50 billion bet on OpenAI. Crypto.news adds that the studio is stepping back from the film ahead of a planned OpenAI IPO.
In other words, a major studio appears to have killed a movie it had already paid to make. The reporting links that decision directly to Amazon's deepening business relationship with the very company—and executive—the film depicts.
The story drew attention online, ranking on the Hacker News front page with more than 100 points. Commentators in the broader coverage, including the newsletter Spyglass, grouped the decision alongside other recent maneuvers by big tech firms around AI.
Why it matters: when a company that owns a movie studio also has billions riding on its subject, shelving a finished, unflattering-sounding film raises pointed questions about whether business partnerships are quietly shaping what audiences get to see.