NEON has released the first Artificial trailer. It hands Andrew Garfield one of the most talked-about real-life roles of the year: OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman. Directed by Luca Guadagnino, Artificial dramatizes one of the strangest weeks in modern tech history — and the first footage sets an appropriately uneasy tone. The project already had buzz after landing a New York Film Festival world premiere.
What the Artificial trailer reveals
The film zeroes in on November 2023. That’s when OpenAI’s board abruptly fired Altman, only to reinstate him days later after a staff revolt. The whiplash saga briefly made the future of the world’s most famous AI company look like an open question. For a few days, the company that built ChatGPT looked like it might implode overnight. Nearly the entire staff threatened to walk, Microsoft dangled a lifeline, and the board reshuffled almost as fast as it had acted. It’s a boardroom thriller that happens to double as a story about who gets to steer the most consequential technology of the decade.
Screenwriter Simon Rich, the former Saturday Night Live writer, adapts the chaos. The teaser leans into the surreal calm of it all. It opens on Garfield’s Altman at a lakeside cabin, musing on world-changing technology and its consequences.
The cast Guadagnino assembled
Notably, Garfield leads a deep ensemble. The supporting cast includes Mark Rylance, Yura Borisov, Monica Barbaro, Billie Lourd, Jason Schwartzman, Cooper Koch, Cooper Hoffman and Ike Barinholtz. It’s a mix of prestige-drama veterans and buzzy newer names that’s very on-brand for a Guadagnino project. It’s a natural next move for the director, who has been on a remarkable run of talky, tightly wound character pieces. It also suits Garfield, whose recent work — including an emotionally raw turn in The Uprising — has kept him squarely in the awards conversation.
How it got to NEON
Of course, the road to release is its own story. Amazon MGM Studios originally acquired the project but ultimately passed on distributing it. The studio said it believed Artificial “will be better served if it were released by a different studio.” NEON stepped in — and for a distributor with a recent history of shepherding buzzy, critically adored films to major awards, an AI-industry drama with a movie star playing Sam Altman is a strong hand to play. It’s exactly the kind of zeitgeist-tapping title that fits the label’s brand.
When you can see ‘Artificial’
Artificial opens in select theaters on Christmas Day 2026 before expanding wider in January 2027 — classic awards-season positioning designed to build word of mouth before the wide rollout. Ultimately, between the subject matter, the director and the cast, this Artificial trailer instantly vaults the film onto the winter watchlist.
Source: Variety
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