Artificial and The Social Reckoning: Hollywood takes aim at Silicon Valley magnates

Hollywood is preparing two major films that portray Silicon Valley's technology magnates less as visionary heroes and more as billionaires increasingly detached from reality.

Artificial, directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Simon Rich, explores two decades of machine-learning research before plunging into OpenAI's turbulent leadership crisis. The story centers on Sam Altman's controversial firing and reinstatement in November 2023.

Andrew Garfield plays Altman, while Yura Borisov portrays OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever and Mark Rylance plays Geoffrey Hinton, described as the godfather of artificial intelligence. Monica Barbaro plays Mira Murati, Cooper Hoffman plays Greg Brockman and Ike Barinholtz portrays Elon Musk. Damon Albarn composed the soundtrack.

The film's sharply critical treatment of its subjects created an unusual business conflict. Amazon MGM Studios originally planned to distribute it, but abandoned the project after reaching a $50 billion commercial partnership with OpenAI. The film remained in limbo until Neon took it on. Its first trailer was released, and the film is scheduled to open at Christmas.

The other project, The Social Reckoning, is the anticipated follow-up to the 2010 film The Social Network. Written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, it focuses on what Facebook became: a driver of polarization, disinformation and political extremism.

Jeremy Strong replaces Jesse Eisenberg as a more mature and colder Mark Zuckerberg. The story follows Frances Haugen, played by Mikey Madison, the data scientist and former executive who disclosed the company's controversial files to Congress, as well as Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz, played by Jeremy Allen White. The film already has a trailer and will be released in the United States on October 9.