Amazon was so keen to divest itself from Artificial, Luca Guadagnino’s film about OpenAI that its deal with Neon reportedly included a no money guarantee. Here’s an interesting detail from the curious situation surrounding Luca Guadagnino’s latest film, Artificial. Starring Andrew Garfield, it’s about the antics of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and a brief period ... Artificial | Neon didn’t have to pay a penny for the OpenAI drama dumped by Amazon (report)
Amazon was so keen to divest itself from Artificial, Luca Guadagnino’s film about OpenAI that its deal with Neon reportedly included a no money guarantee.
Here’s an interesting detail from the curious situation surrounding Luca Guadagnino’s latest film, Artificial. Starring Andrew Garfield, it’s about the antics of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and a brief period in 2023 where he was fired by his own company.
Amazon previously bankrolled the movie for a reported sum of around $40m to $50m. It was shot and in post-production, and was reading for a debut at some prestigious film festivals later this year. Then Amazon made the abrupt decision to dump the film, writing in a statement that it thought Guadagnino’s tech drama might be “better served” at another company.
Indie production and distribution company Neon picked up Artificial's rights a matter of weeks later, following brief sniffs of interest from Mubi.
According to sources at Page Six, however, Neon may have got a bit of a bargain here. It’s said that Neon agreed to take on Artificial and give it a release, but with a “no money guarantee” written into its contract.
As explained by Media Services, a minimum guarantee is an advance payment from a distributor to a filmmaker or creator, which the distributor then makes back from a cut of the resulting work’s profits.
In other words, Neon has essentially paid nothing up front for Guadagnino’s film, assuming the report’s accurate. It’s currently unknown whether Neon and Amazon have some other deal in place where they’ll each share in the film’s profits, assuming it makes any, or whether Amazon has divested itself from the project entirely.
There has been widespread speculation that Amazon has decided to distance itself from Artificial following its multi-billion dollar deal with OpenAI. A film that paints Sam Altman in a less-than-flattering light (which Artificial is said to do) could certainly make things awkward for Amazon.
Other reports, such as this one on Vulture, suggest that there were problems behind the scenes on Artificial and that the film turned out to be more satirical and dark than Amazon was expecting – the implication being that the corporation simply decided it was more trouble than it’s worth.
Page Six, meanwhile, argues that there’s a certain level of nervousness at major studios when it comes to criticising big tech. Aaron Sorkin may have a Social Network sequel on the way, but there’s a certain amount of uncertainty surrounding Darren Aronofsky’s proposed Elon Musk movie, set up at A24, and Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s Gawker Killer, about Peter Thiel’s hand in destroying a popular entertainment gossip website.
“It’s the same skittishness you saw when China was a hot market for US films and every studio bent over backwards to avoid offending and slavishly catered to Chinese sensibilities,” an agent told Page Six. “Film executives keep their jobs by maximizing profits, not by being cultural provocateurs.”
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As we wrote a few days ago, the increasing corporatisation of Hollywood – and the growing influence of AI firms – will inevitably affect what sorts of films get made. On our current trajectory, we’re likely to see fewer films like The Social Network or Artificial, not more.
