Love it, hate it, fear it or work with it, Artificial Intelligence is not going away, and it's a real threat. Director Luca Guadadgino tackles the origins of the digital platform in the new film, Artificial.
The first teaser trailer for his latest collaboration with actor Andrew Garfield — currently appearing on screen in The Uprising — dropped on Monday. And it is as creepy as a human could make it.
Artificial is a biopic about billionaire tech bro Sam Altman and the tumultuous time he's had at his company, OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.
"We have created a machine that will solve the world’s problems,” Garfield is heard saying in a voice-over as he walks from his sleek, super luxury sports car into a secluded compound where we see shirtless men in speedos chatting and chilling out. Deep inside the mansion, he carries a big backpack into a blue-lit vault housing heavy artillery behind glass, and unpacks "the machine" that is AI.
“We opened Pandora’s Box together," says Garfield, playing Altman. "The future is inevitable. Countries will fall, industries are gonna collapse. And we get to be the ones who get to shepherd people into this new world.”
Following that dramatic delivery so pregnant with pauses, we see a montage of parties, planes, people, violence and Garfield screaming. But then he walks away from the camera as we hear his voice, almost in a whisper: "I'm so excited to see it."
Moviegoers will get to see Artificial when it hits select theaters on Christmas Day. But this film almost didn't make it to final production.
As Out reported in June, the latest movie by the director of Challengers, Queer, Call Me By Your Name and After The Hunt, was dropped by Amazon MGM Studios after announcing a $50 billion investment in Altman's OpenAI earlier in the year.
Amazon is, of course, famously owned by Jeff Bezos. The speculation in Hollywood is that their deal must have left Amazon with a sour taste for Artificial, given it is not anticipated to be a flattering portrayal of the man or of Silicon Valley.
Before it hits screens in December, its new distributor, NEON, will premiere Artificial at film festivals in New York City and London, as Deadline reported. The screenplay is by SNL‘s Simon Rich.
The cast also includes Mark Rylance, Yura Borisov, Monica Barbaro, Billie Lourd, Cooper Hoffman, Jason Schwartzman (the straight actor who played a queer character in Guadadgino's Queer), out gay actor Cooper Koch (They/Them, Swallowed), and Ike Barinholtz (The Studio).
This is the leading man's second Silicon Valley tech bro portrayal. Garfield played Eduardo Saverin, Facebook’s co-founder, in The Social Network in 2010.
And fans are noting that coincidence in online comments, as the UK's Indulge Express reported: “Andrew Garfield movies where he’s a pioneer of modern technology that has destroyed the world as we know it is my comfort genre,” wrote one commenter on a post of the movie preview. “They’ve got Andrew looking like he’s back in The Social Network with the baby face,” said another.
Artificial will have a limited theatrical release in the United States on Christmas Day, with a wider expansion in January 2027. Check out the trailer below!
- YouTube youtu.be
