When Bob Iger eagerly told investors that slop was on the menu at the House of Mouse last month, the Disney CEO mentioned that the studio was in talks with a major generative AI company to power its reckless new era. It’s no longer talks: Disney’s disastrous turn into the AI bubble is here.
This morning the studio announced it had agreed to a major deal with OpenAI that will see over 200 Disney characters—including ones from Pixar and Marvel properties, as well as Star Wars—allowed to be used on its Sora video platform and in imagery generated by ChatGPT, making Disney the first major brand to license its content with the AI company.
The three-year licensing deal, which remains subject to negotiation agreements and approval from both Disney and OpenAI’s executive boards, does not cover the likenesses of actors or any voice rights. As part of the agreement, Disney will also become a “major customer” of OpenAI, integrating ChatGPT into its workflow as well as using the company’s APIs to develop new products, tools, and experiences.
“Technological innovation has continually shaped the evolution of entertainment, bringing with it new ways to create and share great stories with the world,” Iger said in a statement shared by OpenAI this morning. “The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence marks an important moment for our industry, and through this collaboration with OpenAI we will thoughtfully and responsibly extend the reach of our storytelling through generative AI, while respecting and protecting creators and their works.
“Bringing together Disney’s iconic stories and characters with OpenAI’s groundbreaking technology puts imagination and creativity directly into the hands of Disney fans in ways we’ve never seen before, giving them richer and more personal ways to connect with the Disney characters and stories they love,” the Disney CEO concluded.
The news comes after Disney has spent the past few years joining several high-profile lawsuits alongside other Hollywood studios to aggressively pursue generative AI platforms from the likes of Midjourney and MiniMax, that allowed users to generate imagery of its characters in breach of Disney’s intellectual copyrights. Indeed, the news of the OpenAI deal comes as Variety reports that Disney lawyers sent a cease and desist letter to Google this week, accusing the company of “infringing Disney’s copyrights on a massive scale” by allowing its properties to be generated and distributed through its AI platforms.
But even while doing so publicly, the studio has been internally experimenting with implementing generative AI into its movies for a while—only to have those efforts dashed by concerns with both legal ramifications and potential public backlash.
Over the summer, the Wall Street Journal reported on two separate instances related to the production of the live-action Moana remake and Tron: Ares where Disney floated the use of generative AI. In the former case, it would’ve been reportedly used to mask over the use of Dwayne Johnson’s cousin, Tanoai Reed, to act as a stand-in for the performer on days he was unavailable. In the latter, Disney allegedly experimented with integrating a character powered by generative AI into Tron‘s grid of programs—named “Bit,” and envisioned as a potential companion for Jeff Bridges’ Kevin Flynn.
In neither case did the plans come to fruition, with Disney wrapped up in legal concerns over ultimate copyright involving the use of AI, as well as fears that news of its use would engender further public enmity with the studio—a fear that reached a fever pitch months after the report when Disney rode a wave of boycott calls and widespread criticism over its decision to temporarily suspend late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over comments he made on-air in the wake of the assassination of the right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk, seen as the latest in a long line of attempted capitulations made by the movie studio to the Trump administration.
With its deal with OpenAI in place, those copyright concerns are seemingly no longer an issue for the studio. It remains to be seen if public backlash will be.
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