Luca Guadagnino’s “Artificial,” a movie about the evils of AI and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is earning rave reviews, raising questions about Amazon’s decision to drop the movie and whether its own AI investments played a role. One creative team member on an Amazon MGM series tells Variety that AI training is a requirement on the lot these days. The source describes a “mandatory and perfunctory meeting” with the company’s AI team, billed as standard workplace education. The AI group spent an hour pitching the creatives on a suite of products it referred to as “tools.” Meanwhile, Nicolas Cage revealed that he refused to sign a document permitting Amazon to use AI in and around his likeness on his now-canceled series “Spider-Noir”: “I am not an AI-friendly actor. I’m not a member of their club,” he said. As one film executive at a rival studio put it: “A reaction this strong just shows you, every studio pretending the film wasn’t releasable is just conflicted out by their own investments in AI.” variety.com/2026/film/news/a…