The Walt Disney Company has entered a three-year partnership with OpenAI that will allow the Sora video-generation model to produce short AI videos featuring many of Disney’s most beloved characters. As part of the agreement, Disney is also investing $1 billion in OpenAI.
Sora, released in September, lets users create short clips simply by typing a prompt. Thanks to this new deal, people will be able to generate videos using more than 200 animated, masked, and creature characters from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars. This includes popular figures like Mickey Mouse, Ariel, Belle, Cinderella, Baymax, Simba, and characters from Encanto, Frozen, Moana, Inside Out, Zootopia, Toy Story, Up, and more.
Users will also have access to animated or illustrated versions of Marvel and Lucasfilm heroes and villains, such as Black Panther, Captain America, Iron Man, Deadpool, Groot, Darth Vader, Han Solo, and Stormtroopers. These characters will also be available inside ChatGPT Images, which lets users create pictures using text instructions.
Disney emphasized that the deal does not cover real actors’ likenesses or voices.
Disney CEO Bob Iger said the rapid growth of AI is a major turning point for the entertainment industry. He noted that this collaboration allows Disney to expand storytelling possibilities in a responsible way while protecting creative rights.
Alongside the character access, Disney will become a major OpenAI customer, using OpenAI’s API tools to develop new features and experiences — including upgrades for Disney+.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman described Disney as “the gold standard of storytelling” and said the partnership demonstrates how creative companies and AI developers can work together responsibly to benefit creators and audiences.
The deal stands out because Disney has taken a hard stance against some other AI platforms. The company previously sued Midjourney for allegedly violating its copyrights and issued a cease-and-desist notice to Character.AI demanding Disney characters be removed from its chatbots. The new partnership shows Disney is not shutting the door on AI entirely — only on what it sees as unauthorized use.
