Following its being dumped by Amazon MGM Studios almost two weeks ago, NEON has swooped in and acquired Luca Guadagnino’s “Artificial” with plans for an Oscar-qualifying run later this year.
Puck’s Matt Belloni confirmed the news and it’s indicated a potential world premiere at the Venice Film Festival is being discussed.
NEON reportedly made a $20+ million offer, outbidding nearest rival MUBI who lowered its offer once other studios passed on the film.
It’s NEON’s most expensive acquisition to date, beating the $15 million each paid for 2025’s “Together” and 2023’s “Ferrari”. An official announcement is expected later this week.
The film follows the meteoric rise of OpenAI – the company behind ChatGPT – along with the personal rivalries, ego clashes, and ethical tensions behind the scenes.
The cast includes Andrew Garfield as current CEO Sam Altman, Yura Borisov as machine learning engineer Ilya Sutskever, Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk along with Monica Barbaro, Cooper Hoffman, Jason Schwartzman and Mark Rylance.
Costing $40 million to produce, Simon Rich (“An American Pickle,” FXX’s “Man Seeking Woman”) penned the screenplay.
