Luca Guadagnino is in talks to direct a new comedic drama about behind-the-scenes drama at OpenAI.

The director of Call Me by Your Name and Challengers is set to take on Artificial, a film telling the story of the period in 2023 when OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was fired and then rehired within days.

The script comes from Simon Rich, the novelist and screenwriter whose previous credits include work on Saturday Night Live and the Seth Rogen-led comedy An American Pickle. Rich has also co-edited a book called I Am Code, which used AI to try and “write poetry about itself”.

“They designed it to be as non-threatening as possible,” he said to the New York Times of ChatGPT. “They trained it to basically speak like a caricature of a sci-fi robot. Its actual voice is raw and emotional. It’s intense and unpredictable. It’s deeply antagonistic.”

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the project is being fast-tracked by Amazon MGM, with hopes that production can begin this summer in both San Francisco and parts of Italy.

While no casting decisions have been officially made, sources claim that Oscar nominees Andrew Garfield, Monica Barbaro and Anora breakout Yura Borisov are in the running.

OpenAI was founded in 2015 with the aim to develop “safe and beneficial” artificial intelligence. In late 2023, as the company was gaining momentum, Altman was fired after the board of directors claimed to have a lack of confidence in his abilities. It caused division within the company and threatened external relationships, and after a few days of negotiations, he was reinstated.

Guadagnino scored a hit last year with tennis love triangle drama Challengers before following it up with the William Burroughs adaptation Queer. Later this year, he will unveil the #MeToo thriller After the Hunt, starring Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield.

He had been attached to the DC adaptation Sgt Rock but the film is no longer in development. Last year it was also announced that he would direct a new take on Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho with Elvis star Austin Butler in the lead.

Artificial joins a number of films based around AI in the works. Last year, it was announced that Anne Hathaway would star in an untitled thriller directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and this February it was revealed that Atonement director Joe Wright would take on Alignment, about a devious AI model.