Hollywood Goes To War With Big Tech

LOS ANGELES — Hollywood is turning on Big Tech.

In a run of films arriving this fall, the industry casts Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Elon Musk and Elizabeth Holmes as venal, feckless, cowardly, cruel or worse — villains in a new, on-screen front in the backlash over Silicon Valley’s power.

And the pile-on may not end there.

“There is a fundamental feeling — a widespread feeling among most people — that these mega-gigantic tech companies don't really care about them,” Tom Rothman, chair and chief executive of Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, told POLITICO. “I don't think there's ever been a period of time in human history where so much power has been concentrated in so few a number of enormous, growth-above-all companies — they're more significant than governments. And one of the important roles that Hollywood has often played is holding power to account.”

It’s a shift for the entertainment industry, a force that for decades regularly turned to foreign powers — from Russia and China to countries across the Middle East — for its on-screen antagonists. Now it is looking just up the coast in California, taking aim at four of the highest-profile tech founders of the last few decades in “The Social Reckoning” (Zuckerberg), “Artificial” (Altman), “You Can See Everything” (Holmes) and “Musk.”

Each is tapping into the zeitgeist, arriving as the immense but unpredictable power of artificial intelligence fuels a growing sense of existential dread, high-profile lawsuits spotlight the pernicious effects of social media, and tech founders’ increased ties to the Trump administration raise concerns about political influence and favorable treatment.

“The on-screen villains change based on what the pervasive fear is,” said filmmaker Mark Kassen, co-founder of A Starting Point, a civic engagement website that publishes interviews with elected officials. His film, “PH-1,” released in April, centers on a senator who faces an unknown foe that weaponizes the media — including social media — against him. “The imbalance in society and the fact that a handful of extraordinarily wealthy people could have all the technology that could control all of society — and dole out our futures to us as they see fit — is a fair fear. And these films all play on that.”

In a sign of the shifting balance of political and cultural power in America, the effect in Silicon Valley may be limited. Tech lobbyists and leaders who spoke with POLITICO said the upcoming movies haven’t been a subject of conversation in their social circles, with Adam Kovacevich, founder and CEO of the left-leaning tech lobby group Chamber of Progress, describing the industry’s reaction as a “collective shrug.”

“I just don’t think people in the Valley really care. They put their blinders on and focus on shipping product, on not losing their edge,” he said, predicting the flurry of films would saturate the market and exceed public appetite for tech-centric stories.

Rothman, whose company made “The Social Reckoning,” isn’t surprised by the muted response: “I do not expect that they give a fuck. But I can't imagine they're overjoyed. And I think they will do the smart thing for them, which is to try to ignore it.”

At least one of the founders portrayed in the films has been sanguine about his on-screen treatment. Altman, whose up-and-down tenure at OpenAI is the focus of “Artificial,” told Decoded by POLITICO, “I'm sure it won't be accurate, but I hope it's funny and enjoyable to watch.”

A spokesperson for Meta did not respond to a request for comment; Musk and a legal representative of Holmes also did not respond to requests for comment.

Hollywood has trained its critical gaze on the dark possibilities of technology before, producing films such as 1968’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” and 2002’s “Minority Report.” “The Terminator” franchise’s fictional AI system, Skynet, is often invoked by tech leaders as a cautionary example of something to avoid — and sometimes as a joke.

But this group of films — three are set for release in October, followed by Neon’s “Artificial” in December — doesn’t pursue fictional visions of what technology might bring, instead offering a new and distinctly biting assessment of real people and technology’s consequences. Aaron Sorkin told POLITICO it was important to him to release “The Social Reckoning,” which he wrote and directed, before the midterms, thinking “maybe one little reminder might be helpful.”

Matthew Schruers, an intellectual property lawyer who leads the lobbying group Computer and Communications Industry Association, said the AI scramble “has to be influencing some of these creative choices.” Given, he said, that the tech industry is increasingly seen as a competitor to Hollywood, it makes sense that films portraying star executives may do so “with a jaundiced eye.”

Yet the public’s widespread anxiety about AI, registering in poll after poll, suggests Hollywood’s new choice of target could be good business. Scores of Americans will be watching — some in theaters, and more absorbing the movie clips that Big Tech itself serves them on their social media feeds.

Commercial interests have long shaped Hollywood’s choices about whom to portray as a villain — and how. After the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union faded as a screen antagonist, Chinese characters appeared more often in that role. As the country’s box office grew in importance, however, studios took steps to keep movies from offending Chinese censors. Among many examples, 2012’s “Red Dawn” altered its invading force from Chinese to North Korean in postproduction, while 2013’s “World War Z” changed dialogue identifying China as a possible source of its zombie outbreak before the film’s release.

The same commercial pressures can surface closer to home. “Artificial” was made by Amazon MGM Studios — but the company dropped it in June. At the time, the company said that the Luca Guadagnino-directed film would “be better served if it were released by a different studio.” The decision came less than four months after Amazon and OpenAI struck a partnership that included a $50 billion investment in Altman’s company. Neon later acquired the movie’s worldwide rights.

For a moment last month, the international release of “Musk” — which the titular SpaceXAI billionaire has called a “hit piece” and “boring” — appeared to be in question. The nearly four-hour documentary from Bleecker Street probes, among other topics, Musk’s relationship with Donald Trump and the brief, tempestuous DOGE era of his presidency.

Despite strong early reviews and a domestic debut set for Oct. 9, “Musk” had no international release date as of mid-September. That prompted a trade publication to report that Universal Pictures, which holds the film’s overseas distribution rights, might not release it. By then, Musk’s attorney had sent director Alex Gibney a frosty legal letter. Universal soon issued a statement: “We’ve always been committed to releasing this film, and our plans haven’t changed.” The documentary is now expected to debut abroad in early 2027.

It’s not just Musk who is concerned. Former Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, now president and CEO of the major San Francisco-based business group Bay Area Council, said she is anxious to see how the filmmakers have scrutinized the tech titans. “There's always a temptation to create good guys and bad guys, when life and humans are far more complex and nuanced than that. And the story of a moment cannot be told through one person's life,” she said.

The release uncertainty around “Musk” and “Artificial” also echoed a concern that Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen had while considering whether to participate in “The Social Reckoning.” Haugen, whose book “The Power of One” was among the source material Sorkin drew on for the script, worried that Facebook might try to interfere with the film.

She said she wondered: “If Facebook showed up with a billion dollars and said, ‘We’ll just buy the movie,’ are you really telling me that Sony would say, ‘No, we won’t take your billion dollars’? I didn’t know how to evaluate that threat model.”

That didn’t happen. Still, Sorkin said he was unnerved by the news that Amazon had dropped “Artificial.” He praised Rothman’s “fortitude” with “The Social Reckoning,” which centers on the partnership between Haugen and journalist Jeff Horwitz. Her leak of internal documents to the then-Wall Street Journal reporter led to a series of stories that examined, in part, what Facebook knew about theharmful effects of its platforms.

Amid the discussion of tech villains, Sorkin wanted to make one thing clear: He doesn't see Zuckerberg, the Meta CEO, as one — at least in “The Social Reckoning.” “If you take him at face value — that his intentions are to bring people closer together to connect the world — OK, that is a good intention,” Sorkin said of the character.

But in real life, he said, “there’s a lot of evidence to say that right now that isn't his intention.”

The version of Zuckerberg in “The Social Reckoning,” Sorkin said, is best understood as an “antihero.”