{"id":199052,"date":"2025-12-23T02:23:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T02:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/199052\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T02:23:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T02:23:09","slug":"what-bob-igers-openai-deal-means-for-disney-and-disney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/199052\/","title":{"rendered":"What Bob Iger’s OpenAI Deal Means for Disney and Disney+"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOn December 11, Disney<\/a> and OpenAI<\/a> announced a landmark partnership: The entertainment giant, according to CEO Bob Iger<\/a>, would pay<\/a> $1 billion to the artificial intelligence power player for an equity stake, while also licensing its Sora tech for short-form video on Disney+ (some 200 animated and live faceless characters).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe three-year deal \u2014 exclusive in the first year \u2014 changes everything<\/a>. Suddenly Darth Vader isn\u2019t just a character that you watch \u2014 it\u2019s one you create with. And with the deal, Disney+ is set to become not just a platform where you can dial up your favorite shows and movies, but one where you can drop yourself into the action or even rearrange it yourself, all with just a few prompts.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo, is this the future of entertainment or its end? Two of The Hollywood Reporter\u2019s tech-minded senior editors, Julian Sancton and Steven Zeitchik, break it down.<\/p>\n

\n\tSteven Zeitchik: It\u2019s been about 10 days since Disney went all in on AI memes. On one hand, the world hasn\u2019t ended, so that\u2019s good. On the another hand, the apocalypse never happens overnight. How do you see what Iger and Disney have done?<\/p>\n

\n\tJulian Sancton: Well, let\u2019s look at the OpenAI side first. This is a big win for them. Sam Altman<\/a> has been poking around Hollywood for a couple years now and he couldn\u2019t get anyone to bite. And now he\u2019s gotten the biggest bite of all. He somehow comes out ahead \u2014 again.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: I mean, it is kind of crazy. All these first-look deals that Runway and other startups have gotten <\/a>and OpenAI is out in the wilderness. And now they just come in and flex with this billion-dollar deal from the biggest beast in the jungle. Just when you counted them out, they remind us yet again how they dominate.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: It\u2019s such a huge win for OpenAI. And the crazy part is they got Disney to pay them!\u00a0Shouldn\u2019t it go the other way? They\u2019re the startup and Disney has all this huge IP. And OpenAI gets to piggyback on Disney to show off Sora.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: I was thinking about that too. I guess it makes sense if you assume that the major place people will consume this stuff is on Disney, not OpenAI. Like, Disney will benefit as the retailer so they\u2019re paying to license the tool.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: I guess. It just feels like it\u2019s such good publicity for OpenAI. Now everyone else will want it too. Assuming anyone wants it in the first place, of course.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: Which gets us to to the question of how popular this will be. Or, to put another way, what are Iger\u2019s odds of success here?<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: Disney should also be prepared for the possibility that after an initial period of excitement and experimentation the public will find this hugely lame, and that this blows up in their face. They\u2019re also betting that OpenAI stays ahead of the AI pack, which even Sam Altman seems to doubt.<\/a> Look, Iger is taking a risk. Everyone\u2019s talking\u00a0about AI all the time, but poll after poll shows that many people are anti-AI or at least skeptical of AI. I\u2019m getting texts from people who have no stake in Hollywood saying \u201cwhat\u2019s going on with this?\u201d It\u2019s definitely a controversial move. But he sees himself as in a fight. And in a fight you throw the first punch. He\u2019s seeing the writing on the wall.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: That\u2019s a good analysis but the AI is mad you mixed a metaphor \u2014 that\u2019s normally its job! I guess the question is what that writing is. That many young people prefer short-form user-generated video to long-form professional content, sure. But Iger also is betting that users will want to interact with high-end content too \u2014 that the stuff we normally just watch we\u2019ll now want to create in. That\u2019s the part that hasn\u2019t been proven and where he\u2019s really putting a chip on the table, to add yet another metaphor.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: He\u2019s basically co-opting two threats \u2014 TikTok<\/a> and AI. It\u2019s \u201cif you can\u2019t beat \u2019em join \u2019em\u201d\u00a0on the TikTok. And then also make money on the AI craze.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: You know I don\u2019t even think he sees AI as a threat. Sure, if he doesn\u2019t control it, it\u2019s a threat, which is why Disney is suing Midjourney. But generally it\u2019s a solution.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: To?<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: To the problem that producing content takes a whole lot of time and money.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: So, to Hollywood.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ (laughs): Yes, to the problem of Hollywood. But I mean isn\u2019t that what the Wall Street era of entertainment has been working toward \u2014 just getting all the risk out? Like that old joke about the embattled book-publishing company that hires a consultant who tells them the answer to their woes is just to stop publishing duds and only put out bestsellers. Hollywood has been trying to mathematically eliminate the possibility of misses for years, which is what all those reboots and sequels have been about.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: One look at the box office tells you how well that\u2019s working.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: Yeah I think that\u2019s what Iger is seeing \u2014 it\u2019s not. See, the problem with all that stuff, whether it original or reboots \u2014 and I mean what I\u2019m about to say sarcastically \u2014 is\u00a0 that it takes so much investment, so much time. You pay a lot of people, and they may or may not produce anything you can use, and even if they do it takes you years before you can make money off it. With short-form AI content you don\u2019t need to pay anyone \u2014 in fact they\u2019re paying you! Through an add-on to your Disney+ subscription or however they\u2019ll do it. And you get money every day instead of waiting years to put a movie out. That\u2019s their thinking. What\u2019s really happening here is the deprofessionalization of content.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: Which sounds frankly insane to anyone who has any appreciation for what Hollywood has done over the past 100 years. But I don\u2019t doubt that is how at least some executives think. By the way, it\u2019s funny to me that the prospect of AI slop now is making reboots and sequels actually seem like a good thing. When for years we\u2019ve believed they were the devil.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: Totally. Because as cynical as that reboot game is someone had to write a script, someone had to have a directorial vision, someone had to think about and perform the character, someone had to design a set. There is creativity even in the most jaded Hollywood rehash.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: But the fact that all of that was happening for just, like, a Beauty and the Beast\u00a0live-action remake or whatever it might be is worth keeping in mind here. Disney was ALWAYS a big commercial enterprise. It\u2019s not like they were these big risk-takers even before the AI revolution. They didn\u2019t have some big bold independent vision that\u2019s now being lost.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: That\u2019s a really good point. It\u2019s not that Disney is moving from risk-taking to conservatism here. It\u2019s that conservatism has been redefined, away from human-led reboots to automated content. Like sequels vs originals was a very 2010\u2019s distinction. The 2020\u2019s battle will be about human vs machine. Are you actually relying on people to come up with what you\u2019re selling? Or are the machines crowding them out?<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: And I think what\u2019s scary is who it\u2019s being sold to. Disney has got the ultimate hold on young viewers. So they\u2019re really conditioning the next generation to think of this as what Hollywood does \u2014 just rehashes of existing IP. Like, \u201cit was this institution that decades ago did cool stuff but now I mainly know it as the place that gives you access to that stuff.\u201d It will become like the crazy old uncle who lets you play with his cool collection.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: I think Iger\u2019s argument would be that this generation is already thinking that way, judging by how much time they spend on TikTok and social platforms. \u201c\u2018Entertainment\u2019 is something I mainly click on or throw onto a digital platform.\u201d They already want slop. He\u2019s just making it easier for them to create it. <\/p>\n

\n\tJS: But that\u2019s the drug-dealer argument isn\u2019t it? \u201cI didn\u2019t create the demand \u2014 they already want this stuff and if they didn\u2019t get it from me they\u2019d get it from someone else.\u201d Same thing here. Iger is saying \u201cI\u2019m not contributing to the decline of professional content. Consumers already did that, and I just want to take advantage of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: And you think they have a responsibility to push back.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: I mean, \u201cresponsibility\u201d is a strong word. But drug-dealer logic is not really what you want on your side of the argument.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: I guess he could say he did spend decades getting them hooked on original content. Now he\u2019s just moving where the new demand goes.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: Yes. And yet I still think he\u2019ll walk and chew gum at the same time. He\u2019ll do all this automated stuff while still running a traditional studio.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: But why? So Guillermo del Toro doesn\u2019t denounce him at awards shows? OK, maybe that\u2019s an exaggeration. But from a business-case standpoint, what\u2019s the upside now to a traditional studio?<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: Why do people go for Oscars? Bob Iger is like so many other people in Hollywood. He wants the glamor, he wants to go to parties in the Hollywood\u00a0Hills.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: But Big Hollywood is so much less about that than it used to be \u2014 about celebrating the hot director or actor. it\u2019s become about being an IP caretaker. And that was before AI. AI just accelerates the trend. Look, if Iger wanted to show he was serious about storytelling all he had to do was make a concurrent announcement here. He could have created a fund to go with his billion dollars to Sam Altman. \u201cHere\u2019s a $100 million pool of money for the most creative, tech-forward storytellers in the Disney universe \u2014 James Cameron, Pete Docter, whoever \u2014 to play with.\u201d Those guys don\u2019t even have to do anything. Just an announcement of \u201cwe believe in AI for this new user-generated world but we also believe in it for our original storytelling world.\u201d But Iger didn\u2019t do that. Original storytelling is nowhere near this.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: I don\u2019t know, I still believe these are smart people who want to make a creative contribution. Maybe not in so noble a way. But they want to be taken seriously by the right people, hobnob with the right fashionable tasteful crowd, with rock stars.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: But maybe how we define that is changing. Maybe we don\u2019t have that crowd in the way we used too, the people we celebrate via Vanity Fair cover shoots. Maybe Hollywood executives just see that\u2019s much less of a thing now and are going with it. Aren\u2019t tech people the new rock stars?<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: But rock stars are loved. Tech people are loathed.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: So who are the new rock stars in Hollywood? Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet and \u2026 who else? I just don\u2019t know that it lands that way anymore, this idea of \u201cBrad Pitt vs Angelina Jolie and what is US Weekly saying.\u201d AI and all this automated slop\u00a0may be finishing off that world but it\u2019s been dying for a while now. Sam Altman is the new rock star.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: He\u2019s loathed.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: Mark Zuckerberg. Jeff Bezos.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: Loathed. Also loathed.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ (laughs): Yet billions of people use their products. Maybe that\u2019s where we\u2019re headed, to hate-worship. And Hollywood needs us to worship worship.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: I\u2019m optimistic we\u2019ll always find a way to tell stories. People want stories \u2014 that\u2019s a cliche for a reason. We\u2019ll just find new ways to tell them.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: I agree with that. But at a mega-corporate level? The new way may be people repurposing old stories.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: I guess I should have said new ways to tell stories that are not slop.\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: Slopstories? Could that be a thing?<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: Only if you want me to take a lot of antidepressants.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: Speaking of depressing, we\u2019re seeing a whole lot of big companies buy up libraries for AI training. That\u2019s clearly Netflix\u2019s game<\/a> with Warner Bros.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: The idea that they\u2019ll be able to control so many decades of Hollywood history \u2014 these high-quality archival images especially \u2014 is truly scary.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: And we just had Sony pay<\/a> almost half a billion dollars for a controlling stake in the Peanuts archive.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: Too bad they have no platform to put it on.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: PlayStation?<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: The go-to place for all Peanuts content.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: Haha, I agree there. Entertainment companies don\u2019t even know where they\u2019ll retail the slop; they just believe they have to.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: I should say there is a part of me that thinks OK, we\u2019ve had merchandise and Happy Meals for years. Disney has spent a lot more than a billion on those. And that can co-exist with Hollywood so why can\u2019t this.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: That\u2019s true but that really only flowed in one direction \u2014 you made the original thing and it powered the derivative thing. Now it\u2019s all commingled. I was talking to a studio executive the other day \u2014 a pretty powerful but also upstanding person \u2014 and he said \u2018you know, I\u2019m OK with people playing with what we do. But they should be playing around\u00a0the cultural thing. Not with the thing itself.\u2019 That feels like the big subversion \u2014 Silicon Valley would say innovation \u2014 with AI. Now the cultural product itself becomes malleable.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: It\u2019s definitely a shift in that sense. Just another way the business isn\u2019t top-down anymore.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: Studios will I do think need some new stuff occasionally of course to keep the train running. Disney can\u2019t just spend the next 20 years being like \u201cWe\u2019re here to help you put Darth Vader at your Thanksgiving dinner.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: \u201cHave a lewd sex act with Goofy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: I guess there will be guardrails.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: Until there is money.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: Or desperation.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: I\u2019m feeling a rush of emotions.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: Like Pixar\u2019s\u00a0Inside Out!<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: Maybe I can AI-insert myself in that movie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On December 11, Disney and OpenAI announced a landmark partnership: The entertainment giant, according to CEO Bob Iger,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,28832,4550,85,46,1748,3000,125,10700],"class_list":{"0":"post-199052","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-bob-iger","12":"tag-disney","13":"tag-il","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-openai","16":"tag-sam-altman","17":"tag-technology","18":"tag-tiktok"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}