Andrew Garfield is stepping into one of his most unexpected roles yet: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
The actor plays Altman in Artificial, a new drama directed by Luca Guadagnino that dramatizes the extraordinary events surrounding Altman’s sudden removal from OpenAI in November 2023. The film’s first trailer, released Tuesday, offers a tense and unsettling glimpse at a story that unfolded in real life at one of the world’s most influential artificial intelligence companies.
Rather than presenting itself as a straightforward technology biopic, Artificial appears to focus on power, ambition, paranoia, and the consequences of creating technology that could reshape society.
What happens in the Artificial trailer?
The trailer introduces Garfield’s Altman as a charismatic but increasingly intense figure navigating the enormous consequences of ChatGPT and the rapid expansion of AI.
At one point, Garfield’s character discusses the launch of ChatGPT and what it could mean for the world, describing the technology as a moment when humanity is opening “Pandora’s box.”
The trailer takes an ominous turn as Altman predicts sweeping disruption, including collapsing industries and countries struggling to adapt to a radically different technological landscape.
The contrast between the excitement surrounding AI and the potential consequences of unleashing increasingly powerful technology appears to be central to the film.
The trailer also features a particularly striking sequence in which Garfield’s Altman enters an underground room filled with weapons.
The scene immediately pushes Artificial beyond the boundaries of a conventional corporate drama, suggesting that Guadagnino is using the real-life OpenAI crisis as a starting point for a much darker exploration of technological power.
What is Artificial about?
Artificial is based on the extraordinary events that unfolded at OpenAI in November 2023, when Sam Altman was abruptly removed as the company’s CEO.
On November 17, 2023, OpenAI’s board announced that Altman was leaving the company, saying that he had not been “consistently candid” in his communications with the board.
The decision stunned the technology industry.
Altman’s removal triggered a rapid succession of developments involving OpenAI employees, investors and Microsoft, which had become one of the company’s most important partners.
Mira Murati, then OpenAI’s chief technology officer, was appointed interim CEO.
Altman ultimately returned to OpenAI just days later after negotiations over the company’s leadership and board reached a new arrangement.
The entire episode lasted roughly five days but became one of the most dramatic leadership crises in Silicon Valley in recent years.
Artificial concentrates on this extraordinary period rather than attempting to tell the entire history of OpenAI.
Why did Sam Altman leave OpenAI?
The precise circumstances surrounding Altman’s removal became the subject of considerable debate.
OpenAI’s board initially said that Altman had not been consistently candid in his communications with the board and that it no longer had confidence in his ability to lead the company.
The company did not initially provide detailed public examples of the alleged lack of candor.
Altman’s departure triggered an immediate backlash inside OpenAI. Hundreds of employees threatened to resign unless the board was replaced and Altman was reinstated.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella subsequently offered Altman and other departing OpenAI employees positions at Microsoft, further escalating the pressure on OpenAI’s board.
Eventually, Altman returned as CEO and OpenAI announced a reconstituted board.
The episode raised larger questions about who ultimately controls an AI company developing technology with potentially enormous economic and social consequences.
Who plays Sam Altman in Artificial?
Andrew Garfield takes on the role of Sam Altman.
Known for films including The Social Network, Hacksaw Ridge and The Amazing Spider-Man, Garfield has played real-world figures before, but his portrayal of Altman represents a very different kind of role.
The character requires Garfield to portray a technology executive operating at the intersection of business, scientific research and an industry increasingly shaped by questions about AI safety and control.
The trailer suggests a deliberately heightened interpretation rather than a traditional impersonation.
Garfield’s Altman is presented as ambitious, confident and fascinated by the possibilities of AI, while the surrounding story steadily introduces a sense of unease.
Who else is in the Artificial cast?
The film features a notable ensemble portraying several figures connected to the technology industry.
- Andrew Garfield as Sam Altman
- Monica Barbaro as Mira Murati
- Yura Borisov as Ilya Sutskever
- Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk
- Mark Rylance as Geoffrey Hinton
The supporting cast includes Jason Schwartzman, Zosia Mamet, Cooper Hoffman, Chris O’Dowd, Cooper Koch and Billie Lourd.
The casting of Hinton is particularly notable. Often described as one of the “godfathers” of modern AI, he has been an outspoken voice on the potential risks associated with increasingly capable artificial intelligence.
Who is directing Artificial?
Artificial is directed by Luca Guadagnino, the filmmaker behind Call Me by Your Name, Suspiria and Challengers.
Guadagnino’s involvement suggests that the film may approach the OpenAI saga less as a conventional Silicon Valley corporate thriller and more as a character-driven psychological drama.
The screenplay comes from Simon Rich, known for his work in comedy and television.
That combination could give Artificial an unusual tone: a real-world technology scandal filtered through a filmmaker known for intense character studies and a writer associated with sharp, often absurdist storytelling.
How accurate will Artificial be?
Although the film draws from real events, Artificial is a dramatization rather than a documentary.
That distinction matters.
The November 2023 OpenAI crisis is well documented, but a feature film necessarily reconstructs private conversations, motivations and events that were never publicly recorded in their entirety.
The trailer itself appears to take creative liberties. The imagery of weapons, for example, should not be interpreted as evidence that anything resembling those scenes occurred during the actual OpenAI leadership crisis.
Instead, such sequences appear designed to dramatize the broader stakes surrounding AI development.
For viewers familiar with the real events, the interesting question may therefore be where the film sticks to the historical record and where Guadagnino and Rich use fiction to explore what the crisis represented.
Why is the 2023 OpenAI crisis still important?
The five-day leadership battle became significant because it exposed an unusual contradiction at the heart of the AI industry.
OpenAI was created with a mission centered on ensuring that artificial general intelligence would benefit humanity broadly. Yet it had also become a hugely valuable technology company operating in an intensely competitive market.
Altman’s removal brought that tension into public view.
The crisis involved questions about corporate governance, AI safety, commercial pressure and the relationship between researchers and executives.
It also demonstrated how quickly an internal dispute at an AI company could affect the wider technology industry.
Microsoft, investors, employees and competing AI companies were all watching as OpenAI’s future appeared uncertain.
That makes the episode fertile material for a film.
Artificial release date
Artificial is expected to have its world premiere at the 2026 New York Film Festival on October 5.
The movie is scheduled for a limited theatrical release on December 25, 2026, before expanding to additional theaters in January.
The release comes at a particularly interesting moment for Hollywood and the technology industry, as AI itself has become a major subject of debate in entertainment, business and popular culture.
Why Andrew Garfield’s Sam Altman could be the film’s biggest draw
For audiences, the combination of Garfield and Guadagnino may be as intriguing as the OpenAI story itself.
Garfield has already played fictionalized and real-world characters in dramas centered on technology, ambition and social disruption. His performance as Eduardo Saverin in The Social Network remains particularly relevant given that the film also examined the human consequences of a rapidly expanding technology company.
But Artificial is entering much more unsettled territory.
The story involves an industry whose biggest breakthroughs are still unfolding in real time. The technology at the center of the film is not merely historical background; it continues to transform workplaces, entertainment, software development and scientific research.
That gives the movie an unusual advantage—and a difficult challenge.
It is telling a story whose consequences have not yet been fully determined.
The bottom line
The first Artificial trailer presents Sam Altman’s brief removal from OpenAI as more than a corporate leadership dispute.
Through Andrew Garfield’s portrayal, Luca Guadagnino appears to be exploring the ambition, fear and uncertainty surrounding a technology that its creators believe could fundamentally change society.
The real November 2023 events lasted only five days.
But the questions they raised—about who should control frontier AI, how much power technology executives should have and whether the pursuit of increasingly capable AI can be separated from its risks—remain unresolved.
That could make Artificial one of the more timely technology dramas arriving in theaters this year.