Disney’s announcement of a three-year deal with OpenAI sparked a wave of opinions. The licensing agreement means Disney-owned characters will be accessible in OpenAI’s Sora, a video creator. Some videos will also stream on Disney+.
Animators React to Disney’s Deal in Openai News Today
When Bob Iger first teased user-created AI videos coming to Disney+, The Owl House creator Dana Terrace called for a boycott of the streamer, encouraging fans to pirate her show.
Deadline spoke to Terrace and animator Aaron Blaise, who worked on Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, and Mulan, and directed Brother Bear.
Blaise leaned towards the positives of AI but said there is something unnerving about knowing characters he animated like the Beast will be manipulated. “It degrades it for the filmmakers,” he said, but also believes Disney didn’t have much choice. “This is them trying to hold the reins and play damage control. If you can’t beat them, join them.”
Blaise doesn’t think AI is a threat to feature-length movies. “Of the people I know [at Disney],” he said, “the notion of creating films with AI couldn’t be further outside the universe of what they want.”
Terrace says the OpenAI deal is proof that Disney is doing everything they can to “take people out of the equation” and that AI is “extremely exploitative” of creatives, customers, and the environment.
“I think it’s soulless,” Terrace said. “I don’t think there’s any artistic integrity behind it. Art, whether it’s technically beautiful or a child’s drawing, is created with intent, with heart, and with meaning — even if that meaning is just to f**k around. AI doesn’t have any of that.”
Terrace said old friends at Disney TV are “miserable” and “scared for their jobs.”
“There’s barely any shows in development, there’s barely any shows in production … and this is just scaring people even more,” she said.
Terrace and Blaise are both concerned about how the instant gratification of AI could impact future animators.
“With Sora,” Terrace explained, “we won’t have the time or patience to sit down and create works of art that help us deal with our feelings or communicate with others, or create something big and beautiful like a movie because we’ll be used to just getting it instantly.”
Blaise said that comments on his animated short film Snow Bear generally say, “It’s so refreshing to see handmade animation — and they’re bashing AI.”
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