Amazon Meddles

Don't meddle. It's one of those oft-stated golden rules of Hollywood that has been broken left and right by the movie studios basically since the dawn of the industry. Apple even more or less has an entire show built around the premise in The Studio. Still, it's considered a cardinal sin for a studio – and certainly any corporate parent – to mess with the creative process of making a movie. And it has come up more often in recent years with all the change happening in Hollywood and all the studios changing hands once again – and especially with Big Tech giants now fully wading into the Hollywood waters.

That's sort of the undercurrent of the news that Amazon MGM is ditching Artificial, Luca Guadagnino's movie about OpenAI. No one is coming out and directly saying it, but it's pretty clear what's going on here: Amazon is meddling.

Now, to be clear and fair, they're not messing with the actual creative process. The movie is done, to the point where it is being screen for test audiences (we'll come back to that). But what Amazon is doing is arguably worse: they're meddling with the distribution of the film. It's not exactly muzzling Guadagnino – at least not yet, but if they can't find a new home for Artificial, that's effectively what they're threatening.

You have to believe they'll find a home, because it's a movie about OpenAI! Even if you don't buy that there will be general interest in the overall AI narrative, and even if you don't think the always-in-the-news nature of OpenAI will help this movie garner buzz, the fact that there's a pretty direct, successful analog in David Fincher's 2010 film The Social Network, which won three Oscars and was nominated for Best Picture while earning over $200M at the box office, seems like a good signal.¹ It's a movie that was so successful, that it's getting a sequel in this year's The Social Reckoning. But the premise of Artificial feels far more Social Network in nature. So yeah, someone is going to pick it up. If nothing else, this new controversy around Amazon dropping it can probably only help its prospects!

If it wasn't a must-see movie before, it is now!

That's part of why it's wild that Amazon is doing this. But the bigger part is the fact that they greenlit and saw the entire product through to completion. Various executives at Amazon MGM read the various iterations of the screenplay. They hired the acclaimed director to helm it. They watched cuts of the movie as it progressed. They were all-in, until suddenly they weren't.

So what happened? Well, again, they're not directly saying it, but it's pretty clearly related to Amazon's relationship with OpenAI. When the movie was greenlit and being made, Amazon had only a loose relationship with the startup for some cloud dealings. Instead, they were the big backer of Anthropic, OpenAI's chief rival, which of course is comprised of a disgruntled team which spun-out of OpenAI. I won't go so far as to say that a sort of anti-OpenAI movie was set up on purpose to help Anthropic, but it couldn't have hurt Amazon's big AI bet!

But then OpenAI changed their arrangement with Microsoft. And that suddenly opened them and their models for business beyond Azure. So it was only natural that the biggest cloud company, Amazon, would seek to sell the models from the biggest AI company, OpenAI. Just how interested was Amazon in getting OpenAI sold through AWS? Well, how does $50B sound? As in the amount Amazon has promised to invest in OpenAI through a series of equity investments tied to their partnership.

Of course that partnership goes both ways. And so if, say, OpenAI doesn't like something about the way Amazon is treating them and thinks it's not helping said partnership well... What I'm saying is that a $50M movie that seemingly casts OpenAI and certainly CEO Sam Altman in a bad light is probably a pretty easy thing for Amazon to walk away from rather than their $50B deal with said company.

Again, no one is saying explicitly that this is what is happening here. But the statements are fairly telling:

"We have the utmost respect and admiration for Luca Guadagnino as an award-winning filmmaker—not to mention a longstanding relationship that we hope to continue. We believe that 'Artificial' will be better served if it were released by a different studio and are working closely with the filmmaking team to find the film a new home."

"We believe" and "better served" are the two key phrases. It's as if to say, "it's not you, it's us."

Added to all of this is what's referenced here: Amazon MGM and Guadagnino have worked together in the past on his films After the Hunt and Challengers. They're not just burning a relationship, they're potentially burning a long-standing partnership. Here's Guadagnino's statement on the matter:

...

Yeah, he's pissed. Obviously. "Shocked" says at least one source to Nicole Sperling at The New York Times.

But should he have been "shocked"? Perhaps not if he's been following the entire OpenAI saga, which presumably he has given, you know, the film. Maybe he thought his relationship with Amazon MGM was strong enough to counter any risk here. Or maybe he simply thought Amazon wouldn't dare. After all, again, the movie was done. But perhaps that aforementioned screening played a role.

Here's Ellise Shafer and Alex Ritman for Variety:

Variety understands that, prior to being dropped by Amazon, “Artificial” already had several test screenings, which went down very positively, and screened for other studios on Thursday. According to an insider who has seen the movie, the characters of Altman and Musk are the least sympathetic and the ones audiences would “like the least.” It’s also understood that Amazon had seen all the early iterations of the script, before Guadagnino boarded the project.

Again, who is surprised by this reaction? Given all the endless reporting – and now legal testimony – on the matter, was Amazon expecting a movie in which anyone, let alone Altman, came out looking good?

And then there's Elon Musk. Would Amazon sweat pissing off the world's first trillionaire? Given that he's the chief rival of their founder, probably not. Then again, given that he controls a certain social network, perhaps there was some level of concern. But certainly not to the level of OpenAI. Again, now a massive strategic partner and investor. Also, a friendship between those two founders probably didn't help this situation:

It’s known that Altman and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos have a relationship and Altman even attended Bezos’ wedding in Italy last year.

One has to imagine that subsequent reporting will pull out a bit more here. Was Altman concerned that such a movie is going to lead to more threats against him or his family? That certainly seems more legitimate than just the ongoing concern about the backlash against AI more generally – but it's impossible to know without actually seeing the movie if there's any merit to that, I'm just trying to come up with some sort of scenario that could quickly change Amazon's mind.

Amazon is clearly angling this as a Mike Hopkins decision. Here's Matt Belloni, who originally scooped this shitshow for Puck:

One source familiar with Amazon’s rationale told me the tone of Artificial shifted markedly darker in the final product from the script by Simon Rich (SNL, Pixar) and how the project was pitched and developed by Guadagnino, who previously directed Challengers and After the Hunt for Amazon. Hopkins watched a cut of the film and decided to pull the plug.

Sure, the Amazon MGM studio boss may have technically made the call. But he also doesn't live in a vacuum. And he certainly doesn't work in one! He's clearly making that decision recognizing all of the above. And so it's really a call of whom he wants to piss off: OpenAI/Sam Altman or Luca Guadagnino and all the talent involved with Artificial? Again, one is a $50B deal, the other is a $50M deal. We're talking three orders of magnitude here. It's just math.

Of course, it isn't just math. Just ask Apple.

One can't help but be reminded of their call a couple years back to kill the wide theatrical release of Wolfs. While that had nothing to do with the subject matter of the movie – Apple seemingly wasn't worried about the hit man lobby – it did still have to do with the math. As in, Apple seemed pretty certain there was no way the movie would work at the box office. At least not to the extent it would need to in order to at least look like a hit – a feat they did manage to pull off with their barely (if at all) profitable, but feted F1.

But with Wolfs, the problem was twofold: George Clooney and Brad Pitt. As in, the stars. Apple risked pissing them off by pulling the plug but felt like they had to do so anyway – perhaps part of the pitch was that it wouldn't look good for any of them if/when the movie flopped at the box office. They made the right call but arguably a dumb decision given the reputation risk associated with killing Wolfs – again, a movie that was done and on the verge of release.

And sure enough, shortly after the decision was made, the director, Jon Watts, let his true feelings be known. He felt betrayed because he was betrayed. But there, at least Apple still released the movie – just on a much smaller theatrical scale and with a wide push to Apple TV.² With Artificial, Amazon just wants it gone.

And beyond the Guadagnino situation, there are massive stars in Andrew Garfield and the clearly on-the-rise Monica Barbaro. How are they going to feel about taking their next movie to Amazon MGM?

Movies switching studios isn't completely unprecedented, but it is pretty unprecedented for this particular reason. And it undercuts the credibility of the entire studio at a time when they perhaps need it most as they gear up to start production on the first James Bond film fully under their purview. The director they landed for that endeavor, Denis Villeneuve, is well known for his strong stances on cinema and artist integrity. So yeah, I can't wait to hear what he thinks about this! Maybe he should poke the bear and make Blue Origin the new SPECTRE?

Or maybe Luca Guadagnino should have just sucked it up and done what Amazon really wanted, which is to make a movie in the style of the "documentary" of Melania Trump.

The fact that this is the other narrative floating in the background here makes this all extra wild. The last time Amazon was in the news in a major way for a film was when they not only bought the Melania doc, but they apparently paid $75M for it – way, way, way above market, with potentially $28M going straight to Mrs. Trump herself. Oh yes, and it was made by a director who was fully cancelled and ostracized in Hollywood. Somehow, Brett Ratner returned, one might say.

But really, somehow none of that managed to derail that movie. In fact, it got a White House premiere! Tim Cook came! Bezos is proud of it. What a fucking farce.

Look, at the end of the day money always talks and more often than not wins. So perhaps none of this has actual long term ramifications for Amazon. But if Artificial turns out to be good and perhaps wins awards if not the box office,³ this whole narrative will keep coming up. That Amazon meddled.

¹ The fact that both feature Andrew Garfield helps too! ↩

² A more interesting parallel may be with Savant the Jessica Chastain-led Apple TV show that Apple pulled shortly before release – and right after the murder of Charlie Kirk. ↩

³ The fact that the screenings all seem to suggest the movie is good adds yet another wild layer to this. That doesn't mean it will be a hit, of course. But you could certainly see it as the type of movie that taps into the zeitgeist at the right time. Much like The Social Network did once upon a time! ↩