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Amazon Won’t Release Its Sam Altman Movie. Will Anyone?

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Amazon Won’t Release Its Sam Altman Movie. Will Anyone?

Pro-football Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins shares his personal journey with major depressive disorder, emphasizing the importance of seeking mental health support and highlighting how adding Caplyta to his treatment improved his symptoms. The episode pivots to a major controversy in Hollywood, where Amazon dropped its $40 million film *Artificial*, a critical portrayal of Sam Altman and OpenAI, citing concerns over the film’s tone and potential backlash. This move is widely seen as a symptom of a broader "chilling effect" in the entertainment industry, where studios avoid content that could offend powerful tech companies. Analysts note that Amazon’s decision follows its $50 billion partnership with OpenAI, suggesting a strategic retreat from controversial narratives. The incident underscores growing corporate influence over creative content, with studios increasingly prioritizing risk avoidance over artistic expression. Critics warn that this trend could lead to diminished creative freedom and undermine free speech in film. Meanwhile, the episode also mourns the death of music legend Clive Davis, whose iconic annual Grammy party symbolized a unique tradition of musical celebration, with expectations that the event will continue under new leadership. The broader narrative reflects a shifting power structure in entertainment, where tech giants now dominate content decisions, raising questions about autonomy, innovation, and the future of storytelling.

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I'm pro-football Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, and I lived for a long time with something I did not know the name of, major depressive disorder. I carried sadness and anger because I thought I could handle it alone, but I couldn't. Now I want to make sure others know that that support is out there. If you're experiencing similar symptoms, talk to a healthcare professional. Visit mddallies.com to watch my story. Paid partnership with Johnson & Johnson. Brian Dawkins is not prescribed Caplyta Lumateperone. I needed more from my antidepressant, so my doctor added Caplyta Lumateperone, proven to provide greater relief from depression symptoms than an antidepressant alone, building on my progress without starting over. Caplyta is for adults with major depressive disorder when used with an antidepressant and is available by prescription only. Individual results may vary. In clinical trials, weight gain was not common. Patients have increased risk of death or stroke. Caplyta is not approved for dementia-related psychosis. Call your doctor about new or sudden mood changes, behaviors, or suicidal thoughts right away. Antidepressants may increase these risks. Report fever, confusion, stiff muscles, which may be life-threatening, or uncontrolled muscle movements, which may be permanent. High cholesterol and weight gain may occur, as can high blood sugar, which may be fatal. Monitoring is recommended. Common side effects are sleepiness, dizziness, nausea, dry mouth, feeling tired, and diarrhea. These aren't all the side effects. Ask your doctor about Caplyta. Learn more at Caplyta.com or call 888-788-7888. This episode of The Town is presented by HBO Max. For your awards consideration, Max presents Hacks, the Emmy award-winning series starring Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder. In the aftermath of mistaken news reports that Debra passed away, she and Ava returned to Las Vegas determined to secure Debra's legacy as a comedian. Don't miss the series Variety is calling one of TV's best comedies ever. Hacks is streaming on HBO Max. Watch now. It is Monday, June 22nd. I broke some news last week in my Puck newsletter that has definitely reverberated around town and beyond. Amazon MGM Studios, the Hollywood arm of the big tech company, they decided to drop an already shot movie called Artificial, directed by the award-winning filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, about open AI and its leader, Sam Altman. Why would they do this? Well, Amazon isn't saying exactly, but I read an early draft of the script for Artificial, and it's definitely not a flattering portrait of one of the most powerful figures in technology. In fact, it's pretty scathing, with Altman presented as a duplicitous backstabber who takes an altruistic non-profit and perverts it to amass power and wealth for himself, potentially disastrous consequences for the world. Amazon told me in a statement on Thursday, quote, we believe that Artificial will be better served if it were released by a different studio and are working closely with the filmmaking team to find the film a new home. Okay. Very nice of them. But why does a studio abruptly dump a $40 million movie with big stars like Andrew Garfield and Monica Barbaro that it didn't seem to have a problem with a year ago when it greenlit the property? I did write in my newsletter last year that I'm, quote, honestly, a little surprised that Amazon would make this movie. But they did, and now the cold feet. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Amazon recently did a $50 billion deal with open AI, one that was announced in February. As part of that deal, Amazon recently did a $50 billion deal with open AI, one that was announced in February. So it seems pretty simple, right? Or is it? And now CAA is trying to place Artificial at another studio. And as of this taping, several of the majors have passed, including Netflix, A24, and Focus Features. I talked to one potential buyer this past weekend who saw the film and said it's so critical of Altman and the AI race, there's no way a major corporation will take a chance on it. So is this movie just not great? And if so, what's the point? I don't know. Not worth it for Amazon or these other companies? Or what does it say about the power of movie studios these days? Is big tech now off limits? And if so, what else is off limits? That's today's show. Our usual Monday guy, Lucas, is off this week for his wedding. So we've got Keech Hagee. In addition to being a reporter at the Wall Street Journal, she wrote a book last year about Sam Altman and open AI called The Optimist, Sam Altman, Open AI, and the Race to Invent the Future. We're going to get into the artificial controversy, why Amazon feels it can't release this movie, and the bigger question. Who, if anyone, will? From The Ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellany, and this is The Town. Okay, we are here with Keech Hagee, who's a reporter at The Wall Street Journal and the author of The Optimist, a book about Sam Altman and the founding and the popularization of open AI. Welcome, Keech. Thanks for having me. Okay, the reason I wanted you on the show today is because people in Hollywood look at this and they freak out. When will my movie get scrapped to please some tech oligarch? So let's first contextualize this by explaining Amazon's relationship with open AI and with Anthropic and other AI companies, including their own efforts in that regard. So Amazon. Amazon is an increasingly important partner for open AI. Sort of a recent partner, right? And open AI famously had this long relationship with Microsoft that felt a little tight for them. They wanted other options, and so they made this deal with Amazon to basically use their, you know, cloud infrastructure. And, you know, open AI is paying Amazon, right, like $50 billion or something to use their cloud infrastructure. But this allows open AI to access, like, government work, Pentagon work. Remember that whole fight, like, a few weeks? Six months ago with Anthropic and the Pentagon, like, what helped open AI kind of snatch that contract away from Anthropic was the Amazon deal, right? Because Amazon is right there with the intelligence community. Amazon seems to be pretty friendly with the Trump administration. They released the Melania movie, and Bezos has made frequent trips there, although Trump has recently been quoted as making fun of the texts that he's gotten from Bezos and Zuckerberg and others. But Amazon's pretty cozy with the administration. I think that's fair to say. Even beyond this administration, right, Amazon has, like, been right there as, like, the, you know, bedrock is what a lot of government folks do their work on. And that is what, like, open AI needed that relationship in order to be able to really access government work. So they had to do this deal with Amazon. And it's an increasingly important partner for them. They ticked off their longtime partner, Microsoft, by getting kind of more in bed with Amazon. And I think it's, like, the future of open AI is, like, Amazon is an increasingly important part. Although it's weird because Amazon is also a very important partner of their running. And, you know, we've seen some very wild stuff in the last couple weeks, right, where Andy Jassy of Amazon was the one who called up the Trump administration and said, oh, you know, Anthropic's mythos model or, you know, fable model is not safe and got it taken down. Kind of a strange thing for a partner to do to their partner. Well, unless you have a bigger, more powerful partner. I did raise an eyebrow. All right. So into this. This dynamic drops this movie project, Artificial, which I wrote last summer when Amazon picked up this movie and started casting it. I was surprised. I literally wrote in my Puck newsletter. I'm honestly surprised that Amazon would go for this because it did. It does touch so many third rails right now about what's going on with big tech. And I've read the script and I looked at it and I was like, this is not. A flattering portrait of Sam Altman. It is social network kind of on steroids because you add in the fact that not only are these guys warping, you know, the, the, the, the culture, they could potentially end the world. And that's the message of this movie. I talked to someone who saw it this past weekend. One of the potential buyers who said it is grim. It is dark. It goes there and makes you feel bad after watching it about the future of the human race. And. And. The fact that Amazon signed up gleefully for this last summer, what changed between then and now is the question. And the only thing that really changed is this big open AI deal that they did. Look, it's certainly true that those optics are, are there, right? They are. But, you know, I, I also was familiar with the script. Like I was about a year ago that I, I saw it and it seemed to me like someone had taken, I mean, Simon Rich, great, like funny writer. But had taken like the most emotionally salient part of the entire blip, which was when Ilya Setskovor flipped. Yeah. Right. Um, he, he had been, he like voted to the, um, I'll say a moment and then like over the weekend, just like changed his mind. And that was, that was insane. That was story wise. And keep in mind, just to say the story takes place when, during this period in 2023, when Altman was briefly fired as the CEO and Altman is portrayed in the movie. As being altruistic in the beginning and they were all on board, AI is going to help the world and Altman betrays them in the script and essentially takes control and is, and changes it to a for-profit enterprise for his own benefit. Right. And I, so on one hand, I totally understand why you would choose, like, it was kind of pulled through Ilya Setskovor as the main character, which was an interesting and I thought kind of clever choice. Um, but it was like someone who had read the news stories and had no inside knowledge of what actually happened. And then just kind of like, you know, created like fictional connective tissue between a few data points, um, which I guess is okay, but that connective tissue. was like you know it was just imaginary like imaginary darkness and i remember coming away thinking like this lily did not need gilding you know what i mean like it was totally a wild super dramatic story on its own there was no reason to like overlay this like fictional even worse frame on top of it so it's not 100 accurate in the opinion of someone who has written a book about sam altman correct correct um and and honestly that could play a role because i remember during the social network fracas with sony and at the time facebook that was their whole argument they're like yeah the entire point of the movie is about mark zuckerberg creating facebook to get a girlfriend when he was dating priscilla his eventual wife during this entire period so the entire premise that aaron sorkin built the narrative on in facebook's view was a flaw premise now i covered that at the time and they went back and forth and they gave them the script in advance and they tried to work with facebook and ultimately zuckerberg kind of laid off and said oh we're you know they had a screening of the movie and they kind of took it as a joke but i think that that movie did do damage to facebook the fact that it was good that it won oscars that it was it sort of created in the public's mindset this image of mark zuckerberg as this maniacal kind of um you know nerd who wants to take over the world and if i'm sam altman i'm looking at that and then i'm looking at this movie saying is am i going to get social networked here now sam participated in your book do you think he's the kind of guy that would make a call and shut this down i can see how he wouldn't like this movie right i mean it's pretty hard to come away from that script um like he's painted as a monster in the script that i i read and not just a monster creating a social network but he's also a monster in the script that i i read and not just a monster a monster creating something that could potentially destroy the world right i mean it's like stakes could not be higher right um so sure i could see how he wouldn't like it i i have no inside knowledge about what he did or why this was killed i honestly don't and for the record my sources involved in this say that he didn't make a call now who knows if that's true who knows how this happened but knowing amazon as you do how big a deal do you think this was because my sources at the studio are saying this was mike hopkins decision he is the head of prime video he saw this movie it had taken a darker turn than they had anticipated and they decided that it was not in the best interest of the company to release this movie so they're going to help find it another distributor do you think sad seattle got involved here i i really have no knowledge about that i mean it is possible the movie just like wasn't that good true right i mean others have passed on it since then so right but amazon releases a lot of movies that are not good aren't very good uh some would argue the majority of their movies but the the question what you're saying is that it wasn't worth it that if this had hit the bullseye and was the social network they would have made the bet but since it's not then it becomes is this worth damaging our relationship here for a you know a company that we have a 50 billion dollar deal in in an industry in which we have hundreds of billions of dollars at stake right if no oscars are going to become your way in this case you know like maybe not worth it yeah and honestly this is what happened two years ago with the donald trump movie the apprentice which premiered at can and got a huge response there and i talked to people at the time there who said yeah it's fine it's good it's not worth it it's not worth poking that bear for this movie and ultimately i think they were kind of proved wrong because it got two oscar nominations for actor and supporting actor and the distributor that picked it up uh tom ortenberg's company they didn't get a lot of box office out of it but they did pretty well on pvod it turned into a good movie for them but that was an instance of the fear factor throughout hollywood just nudging them towards the side of not worth it and ultimately that's the big issue here if none of these other companies are willing to pick it up and so far you know as we are taping the big studios have passed on this netflix focus features disney was never going to do this um a24 a24 is an interesting one because they do release movies like this but they have as a big investor thrive capital who is also a big investor in open ai so they were never going to do this movie it will likely go to a neon or a movie or one of those distributors that is small independent maybe ortenberg's company will pick this one up as well that's not amazon and if that is the future of movies that touch these third rails i think people in hollywood are going to be pissed about this it's really disappointing just today a24 did this ai deal with google where google's going to invest 75 million dollars to create ai tools for filmmakers certainly um since your scoop like last thursday i think whatever that was like all my sources this is what all that anyone wants to talk about right and there's this fear of a chilling effect and like oh god now the tech guys are have taken over hollywood right like that like i had a couple conversations like that um i'm not sure if the specific movie is the example to make that broader claim just given like the creative issues um i agree with you i think the fact that sony is going ahead with the social reckoning the sequel to social network which i know they're downplaying this but does connect zuckerberg and meta to january 6th and the issues that that you that with people organizing on facebook and misinformation i think that that is a good sign facebook and meta are not the same company as they were in 2009 2010 they're much more powerful i'm sure mark zuckerberg's comms is yelling at his comms people like how come we can't get this movie killed what are we going to do we got to be a bigger player in ai for hollywood to be afraid of us i mean that's not to cross my mind right um and the fact that that movie is being made like suggests that like maybe you know it's not quite as grim as as people think i don't know i do think there's a big chilling effect here don't you i mean the studios haven't made a major movie with a north korean or chinese villain since the interview fiasco at sony and michael linton the former head of sea of sony came on this show and said that making the interview was the biggest mistake he made at sony so the message to the rest of hollywood is is don't be like me don't green light these risky movies that could potentially blow up in your face and hollywood has become consumed with risk management so none of these executives are going to see this and be like oh i want to place my reputation in my job on something that could potentially cause my parent company to have a major problem and it's not just open ai it's any of these big tech companies i think if there is something that touches this this third rail of ai dominance or big tech dominance i think all these companies are going to take a hard look and probably pass this episode is brought to you by peacock presenting the hit reality competition series the traitors for your emmy consideration emmy winner alan cumming hosts the treacherous murder mystery game with a cast of reality stars and celebrities in the scottish highlands time calls the series devilishly fun and addictively thrilling with people magazine adding that this season is unlike any that's come before all episodes of the emmy winning series the traitors are streaming now only on peacock the epic film la bola negra is now playing in theaters awards watch 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certain lines of defamation right about like living people um so that's that's one right it's just it's i think we could still have have entertainment that like criticizes the tech's power without um maybe that um but i also think that there's like a lot of money that they're leaving on the table if you're if you're right because all the polling that's out there is there's a lot of concern about ai yeah all the polls suggest the public has turned on ai they don't like it they don't want data centers they don't want them in their lives right so you would think there would be a broad audience actually out there and money to be made to harness that um in the right way so there are really two issues here though because obviously free speech any company can decide what movie to make or not make these companies that passed on it fine more power to you make what you want to make don't make what you don't want to but the question is Is once you agree to make a movie, the pact within Hollywood has always been you back the artist and you see it through. And even if it doesn't work out, most movies don't work out exactly as you want it to. You back the artist. And will there be backlash now if this movie either doesn't come out or gets buried? Because the nightmare scenario here for Amazon is that nobody picks up this movie, they are left with it, and then they have to make the decision whether they bury it, kill it, or whether they essentially pay another company to release it. Yeah, none of those options are great, right? I mean, they're already going to give them a discount. This is a $40 million movie. Any distributor that picks it up is likely going to get a boost from Amazon to take it. So it's going to be a discount from what you would normally pay for a hot-button movie with Andrew Garfield from an award-winning filmmaker like Luca Guadagnino. So good for them if they can do it. But again, maybe they won't. And maybe Amazon will be stuck with this. And then I guess the question is, can Amazon withstand blowback from the creative community for this kind of thing? No one's asked Denis Villeneuve what he thinks of this. He's directing James Bond for them. No one's asked Phil Lord and Chris Miller. Who just directed Project Hail Mary and is about to embark on an Oscar campaign for that movie. Every single thing they do, they're going to get asked, what do you think of Amazon killing their Sam Altman movie? And I guarantee they're going to have an opinion. All of a sudden, this snowballs into Amazon not being creator-friendly, and that hurts them down the line. I do think it does. It is a real risk, and maybe to your point, right? The best outcome is for them finding a safe home that is not quite censorship. Yeah, not quite censorship. That's the goal here. Because ultimately, we are headed into this world where most of the Hollywood studios are going to have been consolidated by big tech. If you just look at the landscape, Warner Brothers and Paramount are going to be owned by Oracle money. Netflix was incubated in Silicon Valley and is more tech company than it is Hollywood company. Disney has relationships. Disney has relationships with OpenAI and others. And if they want to be a player in this world, they're going to have to deal with these companies. Same with Universal and Comcast when they are headed into this world where they have to compete with these companies. Amazon, obviously. Apple, obviously. Sony is owned by a Japanese technology company. Doesn't leave a whole lot left. I mentioned A24. Even the Indies doesn't leave a whole lot left. And these are the conversations that your scoop sparked for me. And my sources over the weekend, right? This exact thing that like, it kind of woke everyone up like, oh, my God, like the tech guys have completely taken over. All this consolidation leaves us with basically content having very little power, which is a theme I know you've covered on this pod, right? A lot. And I do think that that is like part of the broader thing that's going on. What do we do about it? Is there an opportunity here for an upstart to be the non-compromised distribution platform? Or studio? If you have a fearless, a brand of like must-see fearlessness and you can make creators flock to you and the distributors have no choice but to, you know, to buy it because that's what audiences want. In theory. But as we've seen right now, the way that, I mean, it's the same in like, in my business, it's crazy. We've been completely disintermediated and the platforms are like increasingly powerful. And are you guys suing? Are the Murdochs suing OpenAI? No, the Times is suing. We have a partnership. Actually, with OpenAI, it's the Times that's suing. Although it'll be interesting. You know, there's a Rupert Murdoch movie coming later this year called Ink from Danny Boyle. It's based on the play. And that does not have a distributor yet. Rupert has a little less power than some of these AI platforms. I mean, there have been a lot of Murdoch biopics and this and that around lately. There have, including an Emmy-winning TV show. Yeah, there's no shortage of that. I think he secretly likes it. Maybe so. I think he enjoys journalism. He does. I know. He's a complicated guy, but that's one thing I like about him is that he values journalism overall. And not sure Sam Altman does. What do the AI people think of Hollywood? What do they think of these content owners with their copyrights, their silly little rights that they have, and all of this stuff that is potentially standing in the way of these models just dominating? I mean, we can see what they thought by the way that they made. They made these LLMs, right? Like, the entire industry of AI comes out of an academic milieu. All these AI researchers come from an academic milieu where it is just totally fine to take copyrighted material and feed it into your LM without permission, right? Common crawl, all that stuff. I mean, it was just common practice. And the universities were, like, hosting these data sets and stuff like that. It was just, like, considered, like, oh, it's for research? It's for research. You can just take any IP you want and without asking, no problem. And, oh, are we going to make money from that research now? Like, it was across the board a culture of not respecting intellectual property. Yeah. I remember when Sora launched, I basically soiled myself and was like, wait a second. How is this happening? They're just doing this? And that was one at least they backtracked on it. I think the backlash was so significant. But the fact that Dizzy jumped into bed with OpenAI not six months later, I thought was a pretty. pretty stark and depressing statement about where we are in this evolution. I could not agree more. I was really stunned by it, actually, considering how bumpy that whole thing was. And, you know, maybe when they had to sort of euthanize that whole project in the name of saving compute resources, I suspect there were a lot of, like, unsolved IP issues, like, bubbling underneath that surface, you know? And Bob Iger, the former CEO of Disney, Mr. Content, Mr. Rights, you know, protector. He's on the board. Of or he's an advisor to Thrive Capital, which is one of the big investors in OpenAI. So that relationship there, when you understand that, made a little bit more sense. And now Iger's going back to Thrive Capital. Yeah, I mean, Thrive is very important, right? It's a very important part of the OpenAI story, you know, so really important investor for them. And more than that, right, like they are they have these like investments in the creative world of A24 and things like that. So I, I think it was sort of an essential. Bridge builder. So where do you think we're going to land here? What do you think the takeaway from all of this is both for the Hollywood community and for the AI tech community? Well, like, leaving aside what happens with this particular movie, I do feel like this was a wake up call for for creators, right? That like, oh, yeah, wait, the tech guys are like, totally in charge now, and that maybe that needs to be taken into account as people think about how to navigate projects. Sort of. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if that's true. I don't think it's dark, but maybe true. As far as for the AI community, it's so it's so early, you know, in their story, like, I don't feel like their story has not really been told in a Hollywood way, really at all, right? Yeah, there is an opportunity for a great Sam Altman movie. I don't know if this one is it, but there is an opportunity out there. Yeah, I mean, we're just at the beginning of this very, very, very big story. So, you know, I think I think there's money on the table. Yeah, I mean, OpenAI just bought a podcast. Podcast TPBN to be its official mouthpiece. Maybe they can just buy a studio. They have a few billion dollars laying around, although, you know, they're not profitable yet. So the question is, is there any company in entertainment that isn't beholden to OpenAI and the other AI powers right now? I don't know how beholden folks are to OpenAI, but the broader tech ecosystem, if you count, you know, Amazon and Facebook and basically they control Netflix, right? Like all distribution. That matters, YouTube, 100% beholden to those, to that larger ecosystem. So I don't feel like OpenAI is generally like a giant player in that world yet, right? The Disney deal is dead. So it's still pretty early. But they all want one. Josh DeMauro wants an AI deal. All signs are pointing that direction. They feel they need to be in this business. And frankly, the. Stock narrative needs an OpenAI or some kind of AI deal because those are the growth businesses right now. All the entertainment and media stocks are languishing because there is not a growth narrative, including Netflix, by the way. So how do you get to a growth narrative partner with an AI company? All of a sudden, you're going to be in a tech company. That's the dream. Yes. Although the role that you are going to be playing for that AI company is a pretty grim one, most likely, right? You'll just be like. You're going to be a farm. You're going to be the, you know, sentient beings that are harvested for their value. Right. The little batteries in the Matrix. Exactly. Disney could be a giant battery in the Matrix. And you know what? It sounds like dystopian, but might be headed there. Totally. We shall see. All right. Thank you, Keisha. Appreciate you coming on. We are back with the call sheet. Craig, sad news. We don't usually do death on. The town, but Clive Davis died. Amazing legend in the music business. Like very few people. people actually live up to the legend status this guy legend was still doing it still hosting his party 94 years old yeah passed away today does clive davis mean anything to you i mean as a as a entertainment industry icon certainly i've never been to one of his parties i'm sure you've been to many i go every year it's i mean he was always very nice to me he you know turned into he was a player in the 60s 70s he's known for discovering whitney houston and he played a big role in bruce springsteen janice joplin carlos santana a bunch of others but in the later decades when i interacted with him he was really this like ambassador for music the party every year was an official grammy week party and everybody in town would go they would sort of pay homage to him it was one it's one of the stranger parties in hollywood because it really is like almost like a bar mitzvah he gets up there and he like calls out people in the audience like oh i'd like to welcome barbara boxer and i'd like to welcome shakira and i'd like to welcome alicia keys and then like crazy big artists perform at the event and it's always a nice event and i i he will be missed yeah it feels like that those moments were like like a little time capsule of like old hollywood that still happened today totally very few events in hollywood feel like they could have happened 50 years ago and the clive davis party is one of them it does raise the question and that is my prediction today of what will happen to this party now that clive has passed on and i know that the grammy organization narras the national um recording academy that's an official event and it's a fundraiser and they put it on clive was the figurehead but my prediction is i think the ceo of the recording academy harvey jr seems like perfect candidate for this and i think he would probably want it they'll probably have rotating hosts at some point and maybe get some artists involved but i think it's going to happen but i think that the grammy organization will take it over this year will be a gigantic tribute to clive and harvey mason jr will sort of assume that role but do you think that what you just described the power that clive davis had to get on stage almost in a lauren michaels way where it's like if he's on the phone he can get anyone to do anything do you think that feeling that vibe inherently good question probably but you know in his later years it was the apparatus around him he was the figurehead but it was because the party was such a tradition that you know the best new artist nominees felt the they needed to perform there and all of the big label heads would go to this party so you wanted to be there and like barry manilow would show up and perform things like that and i think that if they transition this smartly the party will go on it probably will take on a different form maybe it won't just be you know the let's introduce uh you know bill maher and barbara boxer from the audience but i think the party will continue it'll just have a different figurehead and you think it'll still have his name the clive davis good question probably yeah yeah they'll probably keep it in his honor um because that's that's very few traditions in music that lasts like this and that party been going on for decades so i do think it will so r.i.p clive davis i think that the party will continue all right that's the show today i want to thank my guests keith hagie producer craig horlbeck our editors john jones and jesse lopez and i want to thank you we'll see you one more time this week this episode is brought to you by whole foods market fall is here and whole foods market has everything you need for cozy meals seasonal treats and easy entertaining elevate your hearty dishes with tasty bone-in beef short ribs or new york strip steaks with no added growth hormones or antibiotics and as the fall evenings draw in why not get ahead of cold season with immunity shots herbal teas lozenges and supplements make sure you look for sales throughout the month shop fall flavors with higher standards and they'll be right back Standards at Whole Foods Market.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Brian Dawkins openly shares his experience with major depressive disorder and advocates for seeking mental health support.
  2. He explains that his doctor added Caplyta (lumateperone) to his treatment, which provides greater relief when used with an existing antidepressant.
  3. Caplyta is approved for adults with major depressive disorder and carries important warnings about potential risks like stroke, weight gain, and blood sugar issues.
  4. The Amazon movie *Artificial*, directed by Luca Guadagnino and critical of Sam Altman, was abruptly dropped, raising concerns about Hollywood’s fear of backlash from major tech companies.
  5. Industry observers suggest a broader chilling effect where studios avoid content that could offend big tech, especially around AI and corporate power.
  6. The decision to drop the film coincides with Amazon’s $50 billion deal with OpenAI, indicating a strategic avoidance of controversy.
  7. Hollywood’s increasing consolidation with tech giants like Amazon, Disney, and Netflix signals a shift in content control and creative risks.
  8. Critics argue that the film’s removal reflects a dangerous trend where creative freedom is sacrificed for corporate safety, potentially undermining free speech in entertainment.

Summary:

Pro-football Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins shares his personal journey with major depressive disorder, emphasizing the importance of seeking mental health support and highlighting how adding Caplyta to his treatment improved his symptoms. The episode pivots to a major controversy in Hollywood, where Amazon dropped its $40 million film *Artificial*, a critical portrayal of Sam Altman and OpenAI, citing concerns over the film’s tone and potential backlash. This move is widely seen as a symptom of a broader "chilling effect" in the entertainment industry, where studios avoid content that could offend powerful tech companies.

Analysts note that Amazon’s decision follows its $50 billion partnership with OpenAI, suggesting a strategic retreat from controversial narratives. The incident underscores growing corporate influence over creative content, with studios increasingly prioritizing risk avoidance over artistic expression. Critics warn that this trend could lead to diminished creative freedom and undermine free speech in film.

Meanwhile, the episode also mourns the death of music legend Clive Davis, whose iconic annual Grammy party symbolized a unique tradition of musical celebration, with expectations that the event will continue under new leadership. The broader narrative reflects a shifting power structure in entertainment, where tech giants now dominate content decisions, raising questions about autonomy, innovation, and the future of storytelling.

FAQs

Major depressive disorder is a mental health condition characterized by prolonged sadness, loss of interest, and feelings of hopelessness. Brian Dawkins lived with it for a long time without seeking help, believing he could manage it alone, but eventually realized he needed professional support.

Brian Dawkins added Caplyta (lumateperone) to his treatment because he needed greater relief from his depression symptoms. His doctor recommended it to build on his progress without starting over, as it has shown greater effectiveness than antidepressants alone in clinical trials.

Patients using Caplyta have an increased risk of death or stroke, and may experience high cholesterol, weight gain, or high blood sugar, which can be fatal. They should also report symptoms like fever, confusion, or uncontrolled muscle movements immediately.

Amazon reportedly dropped 'Artificial' because it presents a critical and scathing portrayal of Sam Altman and AI development, which could damage their relationship with OpenAI, a major partner in a $50 billion deal. The studio said it would be better served by releasing the film with a different distributor.

The cancellation suggests a growing fear among studios of creating content that could offend major tech companies, leading to a 'chilling effect' where creative risk is avoided to protect corporate interests and avoid potential backlash.

No, Caplyta is not approved for dementia-related psychosis. It is approved for adults with major depressive disorder when used in combination with an antidepressant, and is available by prescription only.

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