“Artificial” star Andrew Garfield is taking Amazon MGM Studios’ decision to cancel Luca Guadagnino’s film about Sam Altman and OpenAI seriously.
“I was surprised and I wasn’t,” the Oscar winner told me Wednesday while promoting his new film, “The Magic Faraway Tree.” “I think some things fit in certain places and some things don’t fit in others. And they (Amazon) have been nothing but supportive and encouraging as we’ve been making this film. Luca has had a really great relationship with them and I’ve had a great relationship with them as well. I’m grateful that they helped this film find the home it was meant to find.”
The film, written by Simon Rich, takes place in 2023 when OpenAI fires Garfield’s Altman and rehires him.
Neon acquired the nearly completed $40 million film after Amazon MGM Studios announced it thought it would be “better served by releasing it at another studio.” Amazon’s decision comes just months after the company signed a major partnership with OpenAI that included a $50 billion investment, and less than a year after Altman attended Amazon President Jeff Bezos’ wedding.
The cast also includes Monica Barbaro, Yura Borisov, Mark Rylance, Ike Barinholtz, Jason Schwartzman, Zosia Mamet, Cooper Hoffman, Chris O’Dowd, Cooper Koch, and Billie Lourd.
Neon has promised to launch an “Artificial” awards campaign to enter this year’s Oscar race.
Garfield said he did not contact Altman as part of his research and preparation for the role.
“I don’t know what to do. I don’t have his phone number or email,” Garfield said. “But I’m sure he can contact me if he wants to. If he wants to, I’d be very excited to talk to him.”
It’s not that there wasn’t enough published material to draw on. “He’s very well documented,” Garfield said. “There’s a lot of interviews. There’s a lot of visuals, audio, reports. Of course, I wanted to meet Sam, and I still do. But I’m playing a scripted version of the character, so I want to be as faithful as possible, but I think no one will ever fully understand it anyway. We’re all very complex and deeply layered, and I think Mr. Altman is probably no exception.”
I also spoke to Hoffman, whose role in “Artificial” has not been disclosed, on Tuesday night at the Los Angeles premiere of “I Want Your Sex,” the new film directed by the raunchy Greg Araki. The actor said he wasn’t surprised that Amazon pulled the plug on “Artificial.”
“I’m shocked they brought it up in the first place,” Hoffman said. “I thought this was something everyone felt the same way about, but I don’t know…I don’t know who’s running everything. When they dropped it, I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, that actually makes sense,’ and then Neon picked it up, and I’m so happy about that. I love Neon, and I couldn’t be happier.”
