Andrew Garfield steps into the role of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in the first teaser for Luca Guadagnino’s “Artificial,” a drama centered on the company’s turbulent leadership crisis and the rise of ChatGPT.

The film arrives after a turbulent path to distribution. Amazon MGM dropped the nearly completed project in June, shortly after Amazon announced a major investment in OpenAI, before NEON acquired the film.

Written by Simon Rich, “Artificial” dramatizes the events of November 2023, when Altman was abruptly removed as OpenAI’s CEO before returning to the company days later. The brief preview presents Garfield’s Altman in an increasingly ominous light as he reflects on the consequences of artificial intelligence. The teaser opens with Altman making his way through an OpenAI office, including a striking glimpse of a room containing guns behind glass. Garfield’s voiceover then addresses the sweeping changes he believes AI will bring, saying, “We opened Pandora’s Box together,” before warning, “The future’s inevitable. Countries will fall. Industries will collapse, and we get to be the ones to shepherd people into this new world.”

Yura Borisov plays OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, while Monica Barbaro portrays Mira Murati. The ensemble also includes Cooper Hoffman, Jason Schwartzman, Zosia Mamet, Billie Lourd, Chris O’Dowd, Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk and Mark Rylance as AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton.

“Artificial” will have its world premiere Oct. 5 at the New York Film Festival, followed by a BFI London Film Festival screening, and is scheduled for a limited theatrical release Dec. 25. See the teaser trailer: HERE.

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