Text-to-video generator Sora is no more, as OpenAI announces that it’s scrapping the service. Its deal with Disney is also over as a result. Months after its latest iteration launched, the AI video app, Sora, is to be shut down. OpenAI made the dramatic announcement last night (24th March), hours after The Wall Street Journal ... OpenAI axes Sora, its AI video slop generator, ends deal with Disney
Text-to-video generator Sora is no more, as OpenAI announces that it’s scrapping the service. Its deal with Disney is also over as a result.
Months after its latest iteration launched, the AI video app, Sora, is to be shut down. OpenAI made the dramatic announcement last night (24th March), hours after The Wall Street Journal published a report about the plans.
Sora was originally released in December 2024, but it was Sora 2, launched last September, that caught headlines. A mixture of video generator and TikTok social app, it quickly proved capable of churning out remarkably realistic clips based on user text prompts.
The app also proved to be particularly adept at infringing copyright at a scale liable to make Hollywood studios break out in a cold sweat. Within hours of launch, the internet filled up with viral clips of such characters as Pikachu, Mario, SpongeBob SquarePants – and real world figures like the late scientist Stephen Hawking – in various unlikely scenarios.
Initially, OpenAI tried to say that copyright holders could ‘opt out’ of having their characters or imagery appear on Sora 2, but then backtracked somewhat a few days later. ‘Guardrails’ were put in place, making it more difficult to generate copyright-infringing videos.
Sora 2 caught the headlines again in February when Disney announced a $1bn deal with OpenAI. The move would have seen the video generator embedded as a widget on Disney+, with subscribers able to make and share short videos of Mouse House characters. Disney boss Bob Iger said the move would “drive engagement” and expected it to be rolled out in the second half of 2026.
Mere weeks after that announcement, the Disney deal is off. OpenAI is shutting down Sora, it says, because it wants to focus on other projects – including, ominously, robotics “that will help people solve real-world, physical tasks.”
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Generative AI is also ruinously expensive in terms of compute power, generating videos even more so. Last year, Forbes estimated that OpenAI was spending $5bn per year on generating videos alone – the equivalent of $15m per day. The company claws money back through subscriptions, but it’s been reported for some time now that it spends vastly more than it earns.
OpenAI is said to be planning to go public later this year, per the WSJ. With an IPO looming, the firm appears to have decided that losing its video slop generator might make its financials look a little better on its prospectus. (And we stress ‘little’ – even optimistically, OpenAI isn’t expected to make money until at least 2030.)
Sora, at any rate, will soon be dead. In a statement, OpenAI wrote (or auto-generated) the following:
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“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.”
In its own statement, given to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney said that it respected “OpenAI’s decision to exit the video generation business.”
“We appreciate the constructive collaboration between our teams and what we learned from it,” the spokesperson continued, “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.”
Only a few months ago, there were predictions that gen-AI would kill traditional movie-making as we know it. That may yet be the case, but the closure of Sora is the latest sign that the tech’s takeover may not be quite as inevitable as its cheerleaders would have us believe.
You may be wondering, though: where will people go to make videos of SpongeBob SquarePants cooking crystal meth? For now, there’s Seedance, which is essentially Sora 2 but from the makers of TikTok. Though who knows how much that company’s burning as it generates an endless stream of cat videos.
We’ll bring you more on the whacky interaction between entertainment and money-losing AI tech as it comes in.
