New Delhi, July 2 -- Amazon had a nearly finished film about the week Sam Altman was fired and rehired at OpenAI. Then Amazon put $50 billion into OpenAI, and the film stopped being something Amazon wanted its name on.

Amazon MGM Studios dropped "Artificial," Luca Guadagnino's dramatization of OpenAI's chaotic 2023 boardroom crisis starring Andrew Garfield as Altman, in mid-June, according to The Hollywood Reporter's account of the deal. On June 30, after Warner Bros., Netflix and Focus Features all passed on the project, distributor Neon closed a deal to acquire it and plans to push it into this year's awards season.

Amazon's public explanation was thin. Mike Hopkins, the Amazon MGM Studios and Prime Video chief who made the call, said...