Luca Guadagnino is no stranger to the hype that surrounds his films.
That was the case with Melissa P., sold as a provocative and subversive spectacle, only to reveal itself as a work more compromised than compromising. It was also the case with the remake of Suspiria, which triggered the anger of many admirers of the original. Dario Argento himself had described Guadagnino’s film as being very far removed from his own, so much so that, while answering a question from the audience during an event organized by the Fi Pi Li Horror Festival in Livorno, he said: “It might as well not have been called Suspiria; I would have been happier. […] It is an elegant film, well made, as Guadagnino always does. Everything is always beautiful: beautiful curtains, beautiful furniture, wonderful plates, fantastic! That is his vocation.”
After working with Daniel Craig on Queer (2024) and with Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield on After the Hunt (2025), Guadagnino agreed to direct a screenplay written by Simon Rich, a former writer for Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons. From what we know, the plot is expected to focus on OpenAI’s board of directors, composed of Mira Murati, Elon Musk, Sam Altman and Ilya Sutskever, the scientist who worked on the machine-learning model behind ChatGPT and who is expected to be the real protagonist of the film. According to reports, the film should offer an inside perspective on certain real-life events, namely Altman’s temporary removal from OpenAI in November 2023.
Until not long ago, in addition to the title, Artificial, Andrew Garfield’s presence in the role of Altman himself was also considered certain. Then other cast members were gradually confirmed as well: Ike Barinholtz (The Studio), Yura Borisov (Anora) and Cooper Koch (Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story). There are also major names behind the camera: the soundtrack has been entrusted to Damon Albarn, the soul and frontman of Blur and Gorillaz.
It was also known that the film, shot between San Francisco and Turin, was practically finished.
On the afternoon of June 6, 2026, interviewed on stage at the Innovation Festival by Michele Masneri, Guadagnino said he had worked on the film in complete freedom, revealing a certain critical attitude toward those who have marketed and sold ChatGPT as the only possible totalitarian reality of the present and future.
The Palermo-born director admitted that he had not wanted to meet any of the real-life counterparts portrayed in the film, hoping, jokingly perhaps, never to cross paths with them.
Looking at Luca Guadagnino’s filmography, it is not difficult to imagine that he approached the characters in this film with extreme precision, dissecting them through a personal vision that tends to be severe and sharp. Indeed, the protagonists brought to the screen by the director of Call Me by Your Name often pursue dangerous desires and almost never get what they want.
And so we arrive at a few weeks ago, when the scandal broke, affecting not only film news but also, and above all, socio-economic news: Amazon MGM, the studio that was supposed to handle the distribution of Artificial, backed out of the film, declaring itself no longer a suitable partner for this type of production. Everyone started talking about it, articles appeared everywhere, and the reasons behind the studio’s reversal were immediately linked to the recent deals between Amazon and OpenAI: a business worth tens of billions of dollars.
When asked about it during a talk hosted by Lilli Gruber, Guadagnino compared what had happened to the case of the 2003 television film The Reagans, whose distribution was scaled back after heavy pressure.
According to some rumors emerging from screenings, Guadagnino allegedly portrayed Altman as a storyteller, a pathological liar who feeds the legend of his new revolutionary creation.
The answer hidden behind the mystery seems to be the saddest and most banal of all: money. Who would want to look bad in front of such a powerful partner? After Amazon, Netflix, A24 and Focus also declined to acquire the distribution rights. No one seems to realize that the aura of mystery that has gathered around this film could prove to be a powerful promotional boost, and that Artificial could become an interesting ideological banner, a useful work in the discussion surrounding generative artificial intelligence and all the figures orbiting around it.
A few days ago, the story seemed to have taken the path toward a final resolution: Neon, the independent American production and distribution company founded in 2017 by Tom Quinn and Tim League, acquired the film, announcing the release of Artificial by the end of the year. Although Neon remains an independent company, it has already put its stamp on many highly successful films. Among them, it is impossible not to mention Parasite and Anora, both awarded the Oscar in Los Angeles and the Palme d’Or in Cannes.
In the feverish wait to finally see this film on the big screen, perhaps during the next Venice Film Festival, one naturally wonders whether the result will live up to the interest it has generated. One thing is certain: even before being seen, Artificial has already become a case. And for a Luca Guadagnino film, perhaps, it could not have gone any other way.
Matteo Manganelli