LOS ANGELES—Explaining why the company could no longer release Artificial as previously planned, Amazon MGM Studios head Mike Hopkins told director Luca Guadagnino on Thursday that he didn’t realize the film would be so pro-art. “I had no idea you’d be promoting creativity to such an extent,” said Hopkins, who noted that he’d made the difficult decision to drop Guadagnino’s Sam Altman biopic after an internal screening revealed the film contained multiple scenes implying that skilled artists creating new work from scratch was a positive thing. “When I heard you were making a film about AI, we were so excited. But this kind of extremist love letter to human expression just isn’t what Amazon Studios represents.” At press time, Hopkins had offered Guadagnino the opportunity to recut the movie to remove any original thoughts and ideas.
