In the genuinely eerie teaser, Andrew Garfield’s Altman arrives (in a car so sleekly luxurious it may as well be the Batmobile) at his isolated compound as voiceovers (one of which may be from Ike Barinholtz’s Musk, who appears in the film) breathlessly explain just what the company’s latest self-teaching AI invention will do to the rest of us.
“We’ve created a machine that will solve the world’s problems,” one offscreen voice begins, rather hopefully, while Garfield’s tech billionaire intones, more ominously, “We’ve opened Pandora’s Box together.” The fact that Garfield’s Altman is seen traversing icy blue, Ex Machina-style corridors bristling with automatic weapons as he promises “Countries will fall” and “Industries are gonna collapse” does little to dispel the Bond villain vibe.
Artificial‘s path to release hasn’t been without controversy, as a proposed Amazon MGM distribution deal was scrapped just days after Amazon signed a lucrative, $50 billion deal with Altman’s OpenAI. Word has been mixed about the Guadagnino’s latest film, with some insiders citing conspiracies concerning the powerful people portrayed in Artificial (which also stars Cooper Hoffman, Jason Schwartzman, Chris O’Dowd, and Yura Borisov), while others contend that the film simply underwhelmed would-be distributors. Neon eventually picked up the film for its December release.
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