‘Artificial’ Trailer: First Look at Andrew Garfield as Sam Altman in Creepy Biopic

The unsettling teaser for Luca Guadagnino’s take on the OpenAI CEO is here: “Countries will fall. Industries are going to collapse.”

The teaser trailer for the Sam Altman biopic Artificial has been released. In the first footage, Andrew Garfield stars as the OpenAI CEO in director Luca Guadagnino’s upcoming film.

Garfield’s Altman is shown moving through icy blue, sterile corridors before entering what plays like a doomsday bunker, its walls lined with guns and gold behind tinted glass. Over the imagery, his voiceover doesn’t hedge. “We’ve created a machine that will solve the world’s problems. We don’t teach it, it teaches itself. We’re going to call it ChatGPT. We open Pandora’s box together,” he says. “The future is inevitable. Countries will fall. Industries are going to collapse. And we get to be the ones to shepherd people into this new world. I’m so excited to see it.”

At 140 minutes, Artificial focuses on the five-day OpenAI leadership crisis in November 2023, when Altman was fired by the company’s board and reinstated as CEO days later.

How Garfield Approached Playing Altman?

Garfield has previously spoken candidly about portraying the executive who’s helped spearhead the AI revolution. “I don’t know this person, to be clear,” Garfield said. “I don’t know Sam Altman. I’ve never met him. I was going off of the script and court transcripts and interviews and research, and we were telling a story. But I think anyone who takes on that level of responsibility for a company or a technology that you know is going to do a hell of a lot of damage to the soul of humanity [must have] a certain ability to dissociate.”

Why Guadagnino Ended Up Here In The First Place?

The film’s path to this trailer wasn’t simple. Guadagnino reportedly came to the project after his prior film, Sgt. Rock for DC Studios, was pushed back a year, leaving him looking for something he could start immediately. Artificial became that opportunity.

Screenwriter Simon Rich’s earlier drafts are said to have centered the story more on Ilya Sutskever, the OpenAI co-founder and technical mind who ultimately moves to oust Altman, before Guadagnino’s finished cut shifted the focus more squarely onto Altman himself.

The film was famously dropped by Amazon MGM Studios, which developed and financed the project before walking away from distributing it after announcing a $50 billion partnership and investment involving OpenAI. The company said at the time that the film would “be better served if it were released by a different studio.” Neon subsequently rescued the project.

Early word on the finished film has reportedly been mixed, with some insiders pointing to unease over the powerful real-world figures the film portrays, while others simply say it struggled to win distributors over on its merits before Neon stepped in.

Who Else Is In It, And When You Can See It?

The ensemble cast also includes Monica Barbaro as former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, Yura Borisov as Sutskever, Mark Rylance, Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk, Jason Schwartzman, Zosia Mamet, Cooper Hoffman, Chris O’Dowd, Cooper Koch, and Billie Lourd.

Artificial will have its world premiere at the 2026 New York Film Festival on October 5, followed by a London Film Festival gala on October 11. Neon gives it a restricted theatrical launch on Christmas Day, with a wider release to follow in January.

Watch The Teaser Trailer Below:

Joanthan P. Moustakas

Jonathan P. Moustakas founded The Cinema Group in 2020 during the challenges of the pandemic, after losing the vital ability to find community in theaters and escape through the captivating magic of cinema. Feeling profoundly cut off from the vibrant film community he cherished, he sought to create a welcoming home for dedicated cinema fans while providing engaging, daily curated content that resonates with their passions. Years later, The Cinema Group has blossomed from a small collective of loyal fans into a thriving brand that reaches millions of audiences every month across a diverse array of platforms and mediums.

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