Sam Altman gets the Andrew Garfield treatment. Think The Social Network—but with Slack notifications, employee mutiny, and San Francisco as a character. Luca Guadagnino is directing a comedic biopic about OpenAI’s 2023 boardroom chaos. Andrew Garfield is playing Sam Altman, Monica Barbaro is on board, and filming has been spotted all over San Francisco. Ike Barinholtz is set to play Elon Musk. Release window looks like 2026. Artificial dramatises the wild week in November 2023 when OpenAI’s board fired Sam Altman… and then un-fired him. Guadagnino directs; Simon Rich wrote the script; Amazon MGM is backing. Reported budget: ~$40M. Wikipedia
Who’s making it?
- Director: Luca Guadagnino (Challengers, Call Me By Your Name). Wikipedia
- Writer/Producer: Simon Rich (comedy veteran; expect satire). Wikipedia
- Studios: Amazon MGM Studios with Heyday Films & MGM. Wikipedia
Who’s in it (so far)?
- Andrew Garfield as Sam Altman — and yes, we’ve already seen on-set footage/photos of Garfield in Altman-mode. Wikipedia
- Monica Barbaro — widely reported to be playing interim CEO Mira Murati. Wikipedia
- Yura Borisov as Ilya Sutskever. Wikipedia
- Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk (yes, really). The GuardianTheWrapConsequence
- Also attached: Jason Schwartzman, Cooper Hoffman (as Greg Brockman), Cooper Koch, Billie Lourd, Zosia Mamet, Chris O’Dowd (role TBA). WikipediaTheWrap
Where are they filming?
San Francisco is a character in this story. Crews have been spotted at Dolores Park and other city landmarks—plus exterior scenes reportedly shot outside Altman’s actual residence. San Francisco ChronicleSan Francisco StandardThe Times of India
When can we see it?
Amazon MGM hasn’t planted a date, but local reporting pegs the premiere to 2026 (filming is underway now). San Francisco Standard
The tone and comps
Industry chatter frames Artificial as a smart, funny comedy-drama about power, ethics, and egos in AI—think The Social Network with push notifications. The satirical angle tracks with Simon Rich’s sensibilities. Wikipedia
What we still don’t know
- The official synopsis beyond the boardroom saga. Wikipedia
- Full character breakdowns (e.g., who’s playing Satya Nadella, Adam D’Angelo, etc.). Wikipedia
- Release plan beyond that likely 2026 window. San Francisco Standard
The Scenes ChatGPT Expects (Speculation)
Not spoilers—just educated guesses based on the real timeline the film covers, drawing from public reporting and the Wikipedia timeline of events.
The Friday Zoom (board moves, Slack melts)
This is the spark that set everything ablaze: the OpenAI board’s sudden decision to remove Sam Altman. News reportedly broke during a Friday meeting, blindsiding employees and investors alike. In a film adaptation, this scene practically writes itself—tight shots of a video conference, Slack channels exploding, and stunned engineers asking if it’s real. The juxtaposition of a cold, clinical corporate maneuver with the emotional gut punch to the staff would capture the surreal speed at which Altman went from CEO to ousted founder.
The Microsoft Call (cloud leverage meets crisis PR)
When Satya Nadella and Microsoft stepped in, the stakes changed. Microsoft had invested billions and was running core infrastructure for OpenAI. This moment would highlight the clash between big-tech corporate diplomacy and start-up chaos. Expect cinematic tension in the form of late-night phone calls, urgent meetings, and strategic leaks. It’s the ultimate reminder that OpenAI wasn’t just a quirky nonprofit-turned-capped-profit startup—it was a linchpin for one of the world’s largest companies.
The Employee Letter (500+ signatures, “we walk if…” energy)
Within days, nearly the entire staff threatened to leave unless Altman was reinstated. Over 500 employees signed an open letter, sending a message of near-total solidarity. On screen, this could be shown as a rapid-fire montage: engineers hunched over laptops, Slack pings of “signed,” signatures piling up on a shared doc, and the gravity of an entire company threatening mutiny. It’s a cinematic high point of collective action in tech—a moment where coders, researchers, and support staff wielded their collective power.
The Return (five days that felt like five seasons)
Altman’s reinstatement capped off one of the strangest corporate dramas in recent memory. Five days after being fired, he was back in the CEO chair. In film terms, this arc delivers a perfect third-act climax: an emotional return that feels both triumphant and uneasy. Was anything resolved? Or had the alignment problem simply shifted from AI models to human leadership? The pacing—five days of chaos condensed into a tight sequence—would give audiences the same whiplash the tech world felt watching events unfold in real time.
Whether Artificial ends up as biting satire, prestige drama, or a hybrid of both, it already has the makings of a cultural artifact: a movie about AI that isn’t about robots, but about the humans fighting to control them. The Social Network of the AI age. Guadagnino has the cinematic eye, Rich has the comedic timing, and the cast is stacked with actors who can balance absurdity and gravitas. The real boardroom crisis at OpenAI only lasted five days, but it felt like an eternity to the tech world—and if the film captures even half that tension, it could become the defining corporate biopic of this era. Until the release in 2026, we’re left with leaks, set photos, and speculation, but one thing is certain: the story of Artificial is every bit as strange, dramatic, and human as the technology it’s built on.