A little over two years ago, Tyler Perry was so shocked by the advancement of OpenAI‘s latest text-to-video generative AI model Sora that he was willing to put construction of an $800 million studio expansion on hold. Now in 2026, with AI even more advanced and more video tools emerging on the market, Sora is officially dead.
OpenAI announced on Tuesday, March 24 that it is shutting down its Sora app, with the company refocusing its efforts on coding and other business ahead of a planned IPO, as reported first in the Wall Street Journal. The tech giant later confirmed the news on X. In addition, Disney is pulling out of its $1 billion investment and licensing agreement with OpenAI that was announced in December, IndieWire has learned.
“We’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 preserving your work,” The Sora Team wrote.
This is news that is bound to be celebrated by many in the creative community who have become loudly and vehemently opposed to anything AI encroaching on Hollywood. The impact of it though on the entertainment space was becoming undeniable. Sora was making its way into film festivals like Tribeca, and actors were touting its capabilities. OpenAI also faced controversy over a policy to require users and copyright holders to “opt out” of being able to be generated by the latest iteration of the AI model, Sora 2. Disney had originally opted out, but it soon agreed to license its characters even as it sued other AI companies for infringing on its IP.
Don’t think though that just because Disney’s deal with Sora and OpenAI is no more that Disney isn’t interested in AI. Bob Iger, who just exited as Disney CEO, had previously expressed a desire to introduce user-generated AI content onto Disney+ that in theory could’ve been powered by Sora, so it’s not out of the question that Disney under new CEO Josh D’Amaro pursues a new, similar deal with a different AI company.
“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 TWDC spokesperson said. “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.”
While Sora 2 was immediately popular and was responsible for a litany of AI slop videos pouring over social media, it was not alone. The Chinese company ByteDance also released its Seedance 2.0 model that was just as powerful of a video generative tool and had even fewer guardrails on likeness protections and copyrights. Google DeepMind’s Veo 3 is a similarly powerful model that has also been working to court filmmakers with its suite of creator tools.
So while Sora may be going away, it’s likely OpenAI won’t be abandoning any ambitions toward creating more sophisticated generative video models and potentially looking for more influence in Hollywood or with other media companies. When Sora first launched in 2024, we spoke with filmmakers who felt the tech was leaps and bounds ahead of where other generative video models had been. Suddenly filmmakers with a single prompt could direct Sora to produce specific camera movements, vivid background detail, or even multiple different events happening over time within a single prompt. Not two years later, Sora 2 could do even more, and native sound was even possible after AI videos had historically been silent. The days of cartoonish looks at Will Smith eating spaghetti were over.
In the absence of a major tool like Sora though, it will be interesting to see how competitors and film studios themselves respond, such as launching their own models that can be trained on their own IP, whether to use for fan engagement or to help filmmakers in the development or post-production processes. Netflix recently acquired an AI company founded by Ben Affleck called InterPositive, and other studios are quietly tinkering with ways to embrace generative AI.
