Amazon shelves Altman biopic months after deepening OpenAI cloud pact

Amazon MGM has quietly removed Luca Guadagnino’s nearly finished Sam Altman biopic, ‘Artificial,’ from its release slate, leaving the Andrew Garfield-led film without a distributor just months before its planned early-2027 debut. The studio says it wants the project to find a new home and is helping the filmmakers shop it elsewhere, while praising Guadagnino and its working relationship with him. No specific reason was given, and the move came after the film reportedly tested well with early audiences.

The timing is the story. Amazon’s exit follows its February expansion of a multi-year, $38 billion deal to run OpenAI’s systems on AWS, paired with a reported $50 billion investment and joint work on custom AI models. The film dramatizes one of OpenAI’s most unflattering chapters — Altman’s abrupt 2023 firing and rapid reinstatement — and an early viewer told Variety that the on-screen versions of Altman and Elon Musk were the characters audiences liked least.

The optics are sharpened by personal and financial ties: Altman attended Jeff Bezos’s 2025 Venice wedding, and Amazon has backed OpenAI since 2015. While Amazon insists the decision is about giving the film a better release, dropping a critical portrait of a key business partner reads to many as a studio unwilling to bite a hand that now feeds its cloud business.