So much of the fear around artificial intelligence is that movie studios are going to use generative-AI to replace writers, directors, visual artists, and even actors and pump out entire films and shows with Sora 2 or other models. Cooler heads have had to prevail and show there are right ways about approaching generative-AI and doing so with an artist focus, insisting that jobs will evolve rather than be replaced and that there’s no replacing good storytelling.
But today on Disney’s earnings call, CEO Bob Iger gave a better hint about how conglomerates like his are really thinking about generative AI video, and it doesn’t have to do with whether or not “Zootopia 3” is going to look like a Coca-Cola or Toys ‘r Us ad.
“The other thing that we’re really excited about, that AI is going to give us the ability to do, is to provide users of Disney+ with a much more engaged experience, including the ability for them to create user-generated content and to consume user-generated content — mostly short-form — from others,” Iger said on Thursday’s call.
Iger didn’t elaborate too much more than that, but explained that it’s one of the big technology shifts that Disney+ is undergoing, in addition to “game-like features” that can be driven by Disney’s partnership with “Fortnite” maker Epic Games. He did later say though that they’ve had “production conversations” with several AI companies (he didn’t say which) in the hopes that any agreement would “reflect our need to protect the IP.”
Let’s break down what user-generated AI content on Disney+ actually means. Disney would in theory be granting its users the tools to make short-form, social media friendly videos that would allow people to play with Disney IP in (virtually) whatever way they wanted, all for the subscription fee of Disney+ or the Disney bundle. Make your own song from “Moana,” your own episode of “Bluey,” your own custom battle with Darth Vader, or maybe even make yourself one of the Avengers fighting alongside Captain America. How many kids — and a lot of their parents or childless Disney adults — wouldn’t like the sound of that? You could then make those videos viewable and shareable on the platform, which gives Disney+ an incredible amount of new content and the likelihood that people would spend a whole lot more time watching and engaging with various videos all without leaving the Disney+ platform.
Some AI companies have already gotten privy to what that could mean and have been trying to build it themselves. Showrunner bills itself as the Netflix of AI, with a collection of shows it has generated through AI, and then allowing viewers to make their own episodes of those series using the same world-building model that can then be watched by others and become canon for the show.
The creator of that platform, Edward Saatchi, even told us that’s where he believed Lionsgate was heading when it formed a creative partnership with Runway. While Lionsgate is for now using it for pre-vis storyboarding, there’s a future where Lionsgate sells access to an app that lets you generate your own ending to the next “John Wick” movie or “Hunger Games. In that instance, Lionsgate granted Runway permission to use its IP to train AI models, and Lionsgate would call the shots about what you can and can’t do with its IP.
If you’re Disney, you’re even more aware and concerned with how your IP is used than almost anyone. Just one look into the “Disney Vault” tells you all you need to know about how protective Disney has historically been with its intellectual property. If kids are going to be the ones generating AI material, it would have to be extremely careful about what the models could generate, to avoid it being violent, sexual, or offensive material in nature.
Disney though has already shown its willingness to be a bit more flexible with its IP. Its deal with Epic Games has led to “Fortnite” introducing an entire “Simpsons” world into the game, with players getting to run around Springfield shooting opponents as Marge Simpson or even doing coordinated gang-ups of Homer Simpson taking down Peter Griffin (kids these days are insane). There will be more of that sort of meme-worthy content to come, and Disney wants to monetize it if it can.
One wonders why Disney would try and build its own platform when there’s already an enormous amount of AI slop out there on the web. It could just call it a day and create a licensing deal with some AI companies and let them go to town, but Disney already universally opted out of OpenAI generating its IP in Sora 2. By doing so, it can find the right partner that would help better protect its IP and help monetize it for them properly.
Does all of this raise a whole lot of questions about how creators are getting paid when Disney’s custom AI models are trained on its creators’ work? You bet it does, and it’s a big hurdle to getting even this to be a reality despite Disney+’s tech soon being capable.
But if Disney can figure it out in a safe model that pays and protects everyone appropriately, it could become a model that other studios would look to adopt themselves for their own IP.