Disney‘s much heralded $1 billion investment in OpenAI is over as the Sam Altman-led tech giant said Tuesday that it will be shuttering its stand-alone Sora text-to-video app.
“The deal is not moving forward,” a Disney insider told Deadline of the agreement then-House of Mouse CEO Bob Iger reached last year with Altman.
Even though Disney unveiled its investment the IPO-inclined OpenAI in December, it appears no actual money changed hands as the deal was never finalized, I hear. Having said that, it looks dicey that the AI startup will continue to have access to license 250 Disney characters, for which they were set to pay the Burbank-based media giant.
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Right now, as the increasingly consumer-facing OpenAI looks to move to a mega-app, Sora is still functioning — and with Disney characters available. As you can see in this Wall Street-based Captain America short I just created on Sora:
The big-bucks injection late last year from Disney looked to reset the IP battle between artificial intelligence and Hollywood by permitting iconic characters from Frozen, Star Wars and the Marvel multiverse to be used on the generative AI video app. The three-year deal with OpenAI was supposed to make the leap to hyperspace this spring, Iger and other Disney brass boasted on a February earnings call.
Today, that all went in the digital trash when OpenAI said it was pulling the plug on Sora.
“We’re saying goodbye to Sora,” the company declared online.
“To everyone who created with Sora, shared it, and built community around it: thank you,” OpenAI added, reducing its so-called game changer to “What you made with Sora mattered, and we know this news is disappointing. We’ll share more soon, including timelines for the app and API and details on preserving your work.”
— Sora (@soraofficialapp) March 24, 2026We’re saying goodbye to Sora. To everyone who created with Sora, shared it, and built community around it: thank you. What you made with Sora mattered, and we know this news is disappointing.
We’ll share more soon, including timelines for the app and API and details on…
Officially, the now Josh D’Amaro-run Disney today took a turn-the-other-cheek approach to the Sora news.
“As the nascent AI field advances rapidly, we respect OpenAI’s decision to exit the video generation business and to shift its priorities elsewhere,” a company spokesperson said after OpenAI dropped its news. “We appreciate the constructive collaboration between our teams and what we learned from it, and we will continue to engage with AI platforms to find new ways to meet fans where they are while responsibly embracing new technologies that respect IP and the rights of creators.”