Disney‘s much heralded $1 billion investment in OpenAI is over as the Sam Altman-led tech giant will be shuttering its standalone Sora text-to-video app.
“The deal is not moving forward,” an insider tells Deadline of the agreement then-House of Mouse CEO Bob Iger reached last year with Altman.
Even though Disney unveiled its $1 billion investment the IPO-inclined OpenAI back 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 start-up will continue to have access to license 250 Disney characters, which they were set to pay the Burbank-based media giant for.
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Right now, as the increasingly consumer-facing OpenAI looks to move to a mega-app, Sora is still functioning – with Disney characters available. As you can see in this
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