Will the Zuckerberg, Musk and Altman movies make a dent on tech giant evangelism?

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The triple release of The Social Reckoning, Musk and Artificial is less a clear political stance, more like movie studio opportunism

Hollywood is sending a clear message: it’s a friend of tech. Netflix is no longer a lone disruptor: historic studio MGM is now the property of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos; David Ellison’s takeover of Paramount and subsequent Warner Bros merger was supported by his tech giant father; and Apple TV has acted as a patron for multiple film-maker passion projects.

Everyone, including trendy auteur-factory A24, is tying themselves financially to AI.

The enormous pull of the tech industry – including its many trillions of dollars, oversized influence on politics and heavily pushed algorithms and AI products – means Hollywood is not alone in courting its wealth, but it has intensified the historic tension between art and commerce in the entertainment business. Technology that augments the human experience may be a compelling narrative subject, but this year brings a trio of films about the gurus responsible for the industry’s false promises.

Starring Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg, The Social Reckoning is Aaron Sorkin’s pseudo-sequel to The Social Network, about Facebook employee Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison) blowing the whistle on her employer for building an algorithm that radicalised the “alt-right” and damaged teen mental health. This week, two further films receive their UK premiere at the BFI London film festival – Musk is a four-hour study of the SpaceX CEO from Alex Gibney, the documentarian who previously tackled the Enron bankruptcy scandal and Theranos founder and fraudster Elizabeth Holmes.