“Ghoulishly Horrifying” — Internet Reacts to Disney’s New OpenAI Deal

The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI recently reached an agreement to bring Disney characters to Sora, OpenAI’s generative AI platform.

The agreement is a three-year licensing agreement that will allow Sora to “generate short, user-prompted social videos” that can be viewed and shared, and select videos will ultimately make their way to Disney+. While this may sound like the content of the future, many people on the Internet have strong opinions about the new partnership.

Sora is an AI model from OpenAI that lets users create “immersive” videos from text prompts. In the latest version, Sora 2, users can also have the AI model generate audio for the videos. With this new agreement, more than 200 Disney characters will also be able to be used when generating AI videos on Sora. Disney’s characters will also be able to be used when generating images with ChatGPT Images.

In addition to allowing these characters to be used on Sora and featuring videos made with Sora on Disney+, Disney has also agreed to become a major customer of OpenAI.

Disney will be using its APIs to “build new products, tools, and experiences, including for Disney+, and deploying ChatGPT for its employees.” Disney will also make a $1 billion equity investment in OpenAI and receive warrants to purchase additional equity.

In Disney’s press release, they state that this agreement will bring Disney and OpenAI “together to unlock new possibilities in imaginative storytelling.” Sora will soon be able to draw “from a set of more than 200 animated, masked and creature characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars, including costumes, props, vehicles, and iconic environments.” Sora and ChatGPT Images are expected to start generating content with Disney’s characters in early 2026.

“Disney is the global gold standard for storytelling, and we’re excited to partner to allow Sora and ChatGPT Images to expand the way people create and experience great content,” Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, stated. “This agreement shows how AI companies and creative leaders can work together responsibly to promote innovation that benefits society, respect the importance of creativity, and help works reach vast new audiences.”

But, several folks online are already seeing the writing on the wall, with the potential for not-so-PG content to be created using Sora, despite Disney and OpenAI’s insistence to the contrary.

OpenAI and Disney have affirmed “a shared commitment to maintaining robust controls to prevent the generation of illegal or harmful content, to respect the rights of content owners in relation to the outputs of models, and to respect the rights of individuals to appropriately control the use of their voice and likeness.”

CEO Bob Iger said that he was excited about AI being able to provide users with an “engaged experience” during the company’s most recent earnings call, with future opportunities to potentially create and consume user-generated content from others. This new partnership appears to be Iger delivering on his promise to shareholders.

When Disney’s Steamboat Willie copyright expired, and the character entered the public domain, a barrage of AI-generated images flooded the internet that touted Mickey’s involvement in 9/11.

Because of this, folks online appear concerned that this user-generated content could be used to create content that suggestively exploits Disney characters. And, while Disney and OpenAI stated that they’re committed to “including age-appropriate policies” and “maintaining robust controls to prevent the generation of illegal or harmful content,” Slate has reported that OpenAI has lessened ChatGPT’s safety guardrails.

Not only that, but Futurism shared that people are “already creating ghoulishly horrifying Sora Disney videos.”

Additionally, multiple generative AI models have had their safety features bypassed in the past — something that has likely already happened to Sora based on some of the suggestive videos and images that have been created using Disney characters.

One Reddit comment said, “They don’t want to pay writers and animators for their work. So, allow the public have a go with their IP characters using AI. And if some of the results are good, take those videos and add them to Disney+. Now you have a platform that showcases ‘the best of the best fanmade videos’ that you didn’t have to pay one cent for but you can still charge people to stream them.”

Others online are resentful of what this means for the decades of creatives who “made these characters come to life” through their hard work. One Reddit comment said, “It’s like watching my childhood be taken out back and shot, then the corpse is reanimated to do racist sketch comedy.”

There has also been some relatively positive talk online about the partnership — primarily among those in the tech, media, and business industries. A Business Insider article cited Nick Cicero, a digital strategist, who said in a post on X/Twitter that Disney is likely hoping to solve two problems with this deal: creators using unauthorized Disney content and kids who are watching YouTube more than Disney+.

“Sora gives Disney its first scalable way to pull creator-made content into its own premium ecosystem — brand-safe, trackable, legal, and ready for CTV monetization,” he said, regarding delivering targeted advertising to internet-connected televisions.

“This move isn’t about tech,” he continued. “It’s about revenue physics.”

AI and marketing strategist Caroline Giergerich said the deal presents a valuable marketing opportunity for Disney, continuing that this feels like an “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” approach.

“When I was at HBO from ’05 – ’09, I marveled at the sheer volume of cease and desists from the legal team when mobile video was up and coming,” she shared on LinkedIn. “I thought it seemed difficult to fight against the entire internet, and it turns out it was. And AI presents a similar challenge.”

It’s likely that Disney is hoping to get out in front of an industry it might not be able to keep up with. This way, they can control the narrative (i.e., content) over what sort of AI can be created using its characters — in theory.

“By officially licensing these characters now, Disney does three things. 1. Monetizes the AI trend rather than just fighting it in court. 2. Sets the quality standard for how their characters appear in AI video (likely drowning out lower-quality unauthorized versions). 3. Captures data on how fans want to use their IP before they lose exclusive rights,” James Miller, head of business development at Amazon, said on LinkedIn.

An X/Twitter user shared, “Disney investing $1B in OpenAI and integrating AI-generated videos into its IP ecosystem is huge, Sora generating content with Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars characters could redefine storytelling.” Others have said that it was only a matter of time.

While the impacts of this new partnership remain to be seen, we’ll be on the lookout for more updates you need to know about. In the meantime, make sure you stay tuned to the Disney Food Blog for the latest Disney news and beyond.

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What do you think of this new partnership? Let us know in the comments below.

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