{"id":53278,"date":"2025-10-01T02:16:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T02:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/53278\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T02:16:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T02:16:09","slug":"openais-sora-2-could-shake-up-hollywood-and-tiktok","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/53278\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenAI’s Sora 2 Could Shake Up Hollywood — and TikTok"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOn Tuesday, OpenAI<\/a> dropped Sora<\/a> 2, the newest iteration of its 2024-launched video-generation tool. Figure skaters with cats on their heads, dog astronauts gobbling tennis balls, unusually agile horseback riders standing astride multiple animals \u2014 these were some of the snippets seen in its short video presentation.<\/p>\n

\n\tSure, the model still struggles with dialogue \u2014 notice that the scenes feature mostly voiceover when there are words at all. And slow down the videos to individual frames and you\u2019ll see plenty of hallucinations. But OpenAI did enough shiny things Tuesday to make users take notice. The company will release<\/a> \u2014 first by invite, and then presumably commercially \u2014 a tool that will let users prompt these videos into existence and share on their social feeds. Now instead of dunking on people with off the rack memes or shooting a quick video to troll our friends we\u2019ll just prompt them into existence.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSora 2 can do things that are exceptionally difficult \u2014 and in some instances outright impossible \u2014 for prior video generation models: Olympic gymnastics routines, backflips on a paddleboard that accurately model the dynamics of buoyancy and rigidity, and triple axels while a cat holds on for dear life, \u201cthe company said<\/a> in a statement.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo what will this mean for our content landscape? For Hollywood producers? For all of us entertainment consumers? The news also comes amid reports that the company will launch a Sora-powered social app<\/a> and that Hollywood studios will need to opt out<\/a> \u2014 read: request takedowns \u2014 of any video it finds distastefully close to its own protected IP. \u00a0Taken together, \u00a0these news developments seem to be hinting at a world of video we\u2019ve been waiting on for a while now. The AI-ification of our TikTok feed is upon us.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Hollywood Reporter\u2019s senior tech editor Steven Zeitchik and senior features editor Julian Sancton sat down to make sense of what they saw.<\/p>\n

\n\t**<\/p>\n

\n\tJulian Sancton: So how do you read today\u2019s announcement? Does OpenAI, which has been having not-so-open talks<\/a> with Hollywood about encouraging the use of their tools in traditional filmmaking, now give up that approach in favor of allowing the public to make 10-second clips? Or is this just a way to make some cash until the technology to make longer clips becomes viable?<\/p>\n

\n\tSteven Zeitchik: The $64,000 dollar question. Or I guess $500 billion question, given OpenAI\u2019s valuation: Are they trying to be AI TikTok or do they still have hope of being next-gen Pixar? Of course, maybe we\u2019re being too old-line in our thinking. \u00a0Maybe there won\u2019t be a next-gen Pixar \u2014 maybe that top down, elite producers-mass consumers binary, if OpenAI has its way, is a model of the past. Maybe what they\u2019re really after is a world where studios are just sort of IP gatekeepers and we\u2019re all creating within it.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: It certainly seems like being AI TikTok is cheaper and more profitable! At least for OpenAI. And it\u2019s a lot more attainable now.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: And so where does all this leave high-end Hollywood-type video? There are only so many hours in the day, and if these tools catch on we\u2019ll be spending a lot more of them watching or creating our own slop-y videos instead of the professional kind. Studios and even influencers will feel the squeeze.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: I would be very surprised if Hollywood allows this \u201copt-out\u201d model to stand unchallenged. The studios, as you\u2019ve noted before, would much prefer to control the memeification of their IP.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: Right, doesn\u2019t this all work its way toward a deal? Like right now studios are fighting and OpenAI argues fair use and it\u2019s very line-in-the-sand. But ultimately it seems to me it\u2019s all about setting terms for negotiation. Sora 2 or Google Veo or whatever tool we use to create these videos will come with branded characters, and studios will get a cut of that. They\u2019ll move more from a production model to a rights-management model. Which has kind of been happening anyway.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: But do you think studios will really go for that? I do doubt that studios would be happy making movies without having to deal with actors and writers and crews.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: You think they\u2019d prefer to deal with actors and crews?<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: I think for all their cutthroat tactics and greed, the execs did not necessarily get in this business just to make money. Scratch most of them and you\u2019ll find a failed artist.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: The Matt Remick<\/a> factor. I guess it comes down to how many of them there are \u2014 the quiet idealists in the C-suite. You think there are many. You\u2019re much more of an optimist than I am.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: Let\u2019s not forget the studios are also still smarting from the strikes. So they don\u2019t want to openly pursue these meme business models.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: Very smart point: the labor optics aren\u2019t great if they\u2019re making deals with these companies.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: And the more AI is used for memes the more solid the unions\u2019 leverage gets. The guild leaders can say \u201cIs that the business you want to be in? Or do you want to be in business with us?<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: That\u2019s true. But the boards have a say here too. Pixar \u2014 not to pick on them \u2014 but Pixar takes on many billions of dollars of risk and many thousands of employees of overhead. OpenAI and SV will essentially be saying \u201cHere\u2019s a much shinier proposition we have for you, Hollywood \u2014 give us your stuff and we\u2019ll make you Pixar money without having to build the thing or take flyers on 10-year development cycles.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: I should say I\u2019m a little skeptical of what these tools can do. It\u2019s still just prompting a model and seeing what you get, like a slot machine. That\u2019s what they all are. And there\u2019s also the consumer-appeal factor. ChatGPT\u2019s great innovation was the simple user interface which I haven\u2019t seen here yet.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: That\u2019s true. But I think we both agree that today\u2019s drop does make it easier for us to imagine a world, collectively and individually, where you don\u2019t have to shoot a video to post it. Like it will seem like cheating for a second and of course also frustrating because of all the hallucinations and flying unicorns but it does seem like the road is getting dramatically shorter from where we\u2019ve been to a place where we just speak\/type a video and then share it<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: It\u2019s\u00a0notable that\u00a0OpenAI is launching a wide ad campaign for Sora 2 and the app, including print ads. They want this to be the standard. It will make it easier for people to try their hand at it. What takes a little savvy now \u2014 the horribly offensive Chuck Schumer deep fake that Donald Trump re-Truthed \u2014 will be at anyone\u2019s reach in no time.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: And then toss in the IP factor, assuming those deals are made and legal issues are worked out. I can troll you for not going to that party but instead of just words I can have Luke Skywalker do it. Fun for you, for me, and fun for Disney<\/a>\u2019s coffers!<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: It\u2019s just so depressing to see how quickly these AI companies pivoted from this lofty talk of AI\u2019s potential to change the world for the better to just pouring gasoline on the social media dumpster fire.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: You were hoping for AGI.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: I\u2019m just amazed by how tech history is repeating itself. It took about 10 years for technoutopianism to curdle into dangerous, brainrotting enshittification with social media.\u00a0AI has achieved it in less than 3. I guess it does speed up progress!\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: See you\u2019re bleak too. You just garb it in a cloak of optimism. But you\u2019re right of course. Sam Altman<\/a> and OpenAI have been touting different forms of Artificial General Intelligence \u2014 a machine than can reason like a human \u2013 for years now. And we just keep getting souped up iterations of ChatGPT. It\u2019s like: \u201cyou won\u2019t have an AI Agent that can help you reason through the biggest decisions of your life with utmost clarity but at least you can speak a flying on-screen panda into existence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: This all reminds me of something I write about in my (shameless plug) upcoming book, which is how treasure hunters are less adept at finding treasure than at keeping investors on the hook with big, outrageous promises. Like most shameless of them all, Robert Marx, who said that he was close to finding the greatest Spanish treasure ever lost, a life-sized solid gold statue of the Madonna and child. He never provided evidence that it was even made.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: So you\u2019re saying Sam Altman is the Robert Marx of Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: Yes.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: I guess it\u2019s better than being the Richard Marx of Silicon Valley. Last thing: How much art do you think survives here? Like, big picture.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: I\u2019m an optimist on this. PTA is going to PTA.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: That\u2019s true. If you\u2019re him. But with so much less room for risk, where is the next PTA coming from? That\u2019s what worries me. The automation of production \u2014 as opposed to the digitization of distribution, which is what we had in the streaming era \u2014 feels like it will lead to so, so much more slop. Obviously there will be exceptions.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: So PTA and Slop and little in-between?<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: It would be a fitting mirror to the death of the middle class in our broader economy.<\/p>\n

\n\tJS: Quality inequality.<\/p>\n

\n\tSZ: At least there\u2019s a phrase AI could never come up with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Tuesday, OpenAI dropped Sora 2, the newest iteration of its 2024-launched video-generation tool. Figure skaters with cats…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,2398,366,111,139,69,620,1657,45416,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-53278","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-disney","12":"tag-generative-ai","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-newzealand","15":"tag-nz","16":"tag-openai","17":"tag-sam-altman","18":"tag-sora","19":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}