What Neon’s ‘Artificial’ Buy Could Mean for Awards Season

As we suspected last week, “Artificial,” the hot-potato Sam Altman movie that was ditched by Amazon, has been sold to Neon, the indie distributor that released Oscar Best Picture winner “Anora.” Neon’s release noted that it “will compete in this year’s Oscar race.” That means we are likely to see the movie at the Venice Film Festival, which Luca Guadagnino historically never misses as his premiere launch pad. He most recently launched the poorly reviewed “After the Hunt” at the festival, albeit out of competition.

Andrew Garfield stars as the OpenAI CEO in the Simon Rich-scripted drama, which is rumored to be a scathing and dark critique of artificial intelligence and the technology pioneer. Will Oscar and guild voters want to throw their weight behind a movie that lambastes the very technology that threatens their existence? Hollywood and big tech’s relationship is another story.

All this and more on the latest episode of IndieWire’s “Screen Talk” podcast, where we also stack up “Artificial” against the “Social Network” “companion” film “The Social Reckoning,” which co-host Ryan Lattanzio feels is unlikely to world premiere at Venice opposite Guadagnino’s (which actually originally wasn’t going to be ready in time for the Italian film festival). Aaron Sorkin is not seen as a world-class auteur filmmaker the way Guadagnino or David Fincher (who could show up at Venice with the “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” sequel).

Elsewhere on the podcast, we also look at “Obsession’s” positioning in the awards race as a potential dark horse (and unusual) Oscar player for Focus Features, now that Anne has finally seen the film. Plus, which Best Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, and Actress contenders at the Oscars this year could potentially see double nomination now that the Academy has lifted its ban on actors being nominated multiple times in the same category.

Listen to the episode below or on your preferred podcast platform.