Andrew Garfield's 'Artificial' Premieres at NYFF After Neon Rescued It From Amazon

Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial had its world premiere Monday night at the New York Film Festival. The screening played at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, with Guadagnino and his cast in the house.

Andrew Garfield plays OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman. Yura Borisov plays Ilya Sutskever, the chief scientist who led the boardroom push to oust him. Monica Barbaro plays Mira Murati, the chief technology officer. Ike Barinholtz plays Elon Musk.

The ensemble also includes Mark Rylance, Jason Schwartzman, Cooper Hoffman, Chris O’Dowd, Billie Lourd, Zosia Mamet and Cooper Koch. Simon Rich wrote the script. Damon Albarn wrote songs and the score.

The film dramatizes the five days in November 2023 when OpenAI’s board fired Altman and then brought him back. At the premiere, Garfield said playing a living person carries a heavy responsibility. He said the deeper one was to interrogate “who we are giving all of our autonomy, power, and data to,” according to Deadline.

He told Esquire he has never met Altman. “I don’t know Sam Altman,” he said. “I’ve never met him.”

Amazon MGM Studios originally financed the film. In June, Amazon walked away. A spokesperson said the company believed Artificial “will be better served if it were released by a different studio” and would help the filmmakers find a new home. The decision came months after Amazon announced a $50 billion partnership with OpenAI.

Netflix, A24 and Focus Features also passed. Neon acquired the global rights.

Altman has seen the film. He said Garfield’s portrayal got one thing exactly right, and that the filmmakers are trying to make a good movie. “It will not be good as an accurate depiction,” he said.

Neon will open Artificial in select theaters on Christmas Day, with a wider release in January. The film screens again at the festival Tuesday and October 11, then plays the London Film Festival.

Early reactions are strong. Next Best Picture called it “as entertaining as it is terrifying” and “the most urgently relevant film of our time.” Rich told Deadline the film is “a last-ditch effort to warn mankind.”