This weekend marks the kickoff of a slew of films centered on some of the biggest figures in technology and artificial intelligence, as public concern about the industry grows.
Sony Pictures' "The Social Reckoning" is expected to open to around $7 million domestically this weekend. The scripted film is a follow-up to Aaron Sorkin's "The Social Network" from 2010, which went on to win three Academy Awards. While Sorkin's first "Social" film focused on Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's founding of the company, "The Social Reckoning" follows the 2021 leak by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who exposed internal documents from the tech giant.
"It brought back really warm memories for me," Haugen told CNBC recently about the film. "And so I felt it captured the spirit of that time period."
The box office this weekend will also see a limited release of Alex Gibney's nearly four-hour Elon Musk documentary, called "Musk." Early showings have drawn critical acclaim, but it's also been criticized by Musk himself on X, saying the film has zero integrity.
"You Can See Everything," the documentary about disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim via A24 Films, releases on Oct. 16.
Christmas brings "Artificial" from Neon to theaters. The scripted film depicts OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and his brief firing from the role in 2023.
"It looks like an awful movie, but I appreciate people's creativity, and I really do support that," Altman recently told CNBC. "I get why people have anxiety. And also if they need to, like, project that anxiety onto someone or have a little bit of relief and poke fun at me, it doesn't bother me."
Netflix is also joining in. The streamer's latest installment of its "Instadocs" series will premiere on Monday, highlighting the Hugging Face incident, in which a swarm of OpenAI agents escaped a testing environment and autonomously hacked into the company's infrastructure.
These films come at a critical time as the public has grown increasingly concerned about the dangers of AI and wary of the data centers that power the technology. A recent Quinnipiac poll showed that 73% of Americans are concerned about AI's threat to human survival, while a Pew Research survey showed that 54% think data centers are bad for the environment.
The question now is whether these films will push that public perception even further toward the brink.
David Kirby, Cal Poly's director of Science, Technology & Society, said the public attention on these films is only adding fuel to the fire.
"Movies are incredibly persuasive media," he said. "Stories are incredibly persuasive. We've known this for centuries."
"I think the people at the top, they're worried about it partially because they don't like to look bad. They don't like people questioning that they know what they're doing or that they're not the people who are going to be saving humanity," he added.
Hollywood has a history of releasing films that researchers and observers have linked to changes in public opinion. The 2004 blockbuster "The Day After Tomorrow" was recognized for drawing attention to climate change, while the 2013 documentary "Blackfish" was credited with changing perceptions of SeaWorld and marine mammal captivity.
Kirby credited films like "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon" from 1998 as forcing governments to spend more money and attention on the topic of asteroids hitting the Earth.
"Was the science right in it? Not really. It's controversial, but in terms of raising awareness … that's what you want," Kirby said. "You need to break into that public attention. You need people to start paying attention to you. Movies, that's a perfect way to do that."
