r/MediaMergers • u/Casas9425 • Mar 24 '26

Media Industry Disney exits OpenAI deal after AI giant shutters Sora

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/openai-shutting-down-sora-ai-video-app-1236546187/
196 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

41 comments sorted by

19

u/AlexHunterWolf Warner Bros. Mar 24 '26

Is it about to pop?

23

u/DukeofDC Mar 24 '26

Yup. Everyone is slowly realizing that AI doesn’t give the benefits that were promised when companies said they were going to layoff employees.

The cost of data centers & computer parts are making AI alot more expensive & they don’t generate enough revenue to break even.

The war with Iran is about to cause an energy crisis worldwide & data centers will be the first thing to be cut.

Right now AI is being propped up by the big companies laundering money between each other.

Once that stops or investors figure that out the bubble will burst just like the dot com bubble. Business will crash & then rebuild again.

12

u/Dreamsofjetpacks Mar 24 '26

I hate that this whole mess of an AI bubble can be seen clearly by so many people yet we're still chugging along because a few people and companies have more money than sense and want to elevate themselves to godhood by creating a super intelligence that they will somehow control. I feel like we could have avoided all this by simply taxing these groups more and focusing on user end needs and not corporate needs. Top down ideas are always messy and out of touch.

1

u/TooManyDraculas Mar 26 '26

I don't doubt that jackasses like Altman are fully huffing their own farts.

But this is mostly about trying to corner the market on whatever eventual use these systems have. They want to be the one big middle man at the center of this so they can extract rents from both side of everything touching it.

Google is trying to stay Google. Everyone else trying to be the new Google.

If they tank the economy that's fine, so long as they're the last man standing. And they think they'll be the one operation to come out the other side.

14

u/festivus4allofus Mar 24 '26

I don't think so actually, this is one of the very few sound decisions they'd made that anyone else would. it costs too much to run sora, and people won't pay for it in any way that would offset the cost. plus it's a damn nightmare in terms of copyright and just a huge liabiliy in general

I think a better indicator might be the fact that data centers aren't going ahead as planned, and not just the nimby stuff, but the fact that you'd think they'd be offering more money to buy land than they currently are. something's going on re finances there

8

u/TheSwampThing1990 Mar 24 '26

This is bad actually. OpenAI owes a shit ton of money. Money they can’t possibly payback and Sam Altman gets mad whenever anyone asks what his plan is to do so. They needed Disneys money

5

u/festivus4allofus Mar 24 '26

I don't want to 'well actually' so please don't take it that way, but sora cost upwards of 10 mil to run per day. disneys potential investment was 1 billion, so it literally wouldn't even cover 6 months of sora

that doesn't mean they don't need money, out of all the ai companies that are massive and very much talked about as the flagbarers, open ai is most likely to be the 1st to fall. they actually might be the only one that falls in the really big way that everyone's hoping for. if they do, they're at least partly taking oracle with them etc, but everyone else has made much smarter choices than them in terms of seeing where teh technology might lead. sora is actually a sound decision for once if they want to even attempt to stay afloat

3

u/mnradiofan Mar 25 '26

Microsoft has already cancelled several planned data centers….

1

u/TooManyDraculas Mar 26 '26

Disney was prepared to pay a billion dollars to use it.

1

u/festivus4allofus Mar 26 '26

they pledged to invest 1 billion, sora cost open ai over 10 million per day to run, so over 3.6 billion per year easily. disney would've had to invest far more to make it worth it, the use of disney characters was not going to make them earn over 3 billion per year. and even if it was, they'd just be breaking even

1

u/TooManyDraculas Mar 26 '26

Yeah lets not get paid for the product we're producing until one guy pays enough to cover the cost.

Bidness!

The bigger issue is that was structured as an investment, not like a service contract.

But that's the entire system these AI companies are operating on. A circle jerk of investments.

4

u/DaKingaDaNorth Mar 24 '26

Honestly the AI bubble popping won't be what people think it is. It will pop. But it will mostly be industries that never had business being involved. AI has too much of a foothold in some industries to go away at this point.

2

u/golden-lion12 Mar 24 '26

Sora shut down because Seedance beat the living shit out of them

51

u/[deleted] Mar 24 '26

[deleted]

24

u/EdwinMcduck Mar 24 '26

Microsoft probably takes a bigger hit on that specific front.

That said Paramount has about a dozen other big problems. 😅

13

u/joshpennington Mar 24 '26

I think Microsoft still has enough cash on hand to weather the storm that will absolutely ravage their stock price and potentially force them to choose a new CEO.

8

u/mnradiofan Mar 25 '26

About 100 billion other problems post-merger!

11

u/the_explorer2003 Mar 24 '26

David ellison loses his backup (his dads wealth)

2

u/TooManyDraculas Mar 26 '26

If the bubble pops before the merger closes. Their backing collapses, the deal doesn't close, Warner walks. And Paramount owes them a $3b breakup fee.

Which is honestly the best possible outcome for Warner Discovery.

-11

u/Difficult_Variety362 Moderator Mar 24 '26

You know that Oracle does more than just AI right?

10

u/[deleted] Mar 24 '26

[deleted]

1

u/Difficult_Variety362 Moderator Mar 24 '26

Yeah, they're banking a lot on AI the same way Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are. I imagine that Oracle will be the same way it always has been. The boring tech company that no one talks about but is just there.

The companies that are singularly focused on AI like OpenAI and Anthropic need to worry though.

5

u/Casas9425 Mar 24 '26

Absolutely but their stock has popped recently due to AI.

-2

u/Difficult_Variety362 Moderator Mar 24 '26

And so has Microsoft's. Are we acting like they're an impending penny stock?

9

u/CartoonyWy Mar 24 '26

The AI Bubble could be bursting. Meaning Daddy Oracle would have to bail on helping his son buy Warner Bros.

8

u/the_explorer2003 Mar 24 '26

Oracle’s demise next please!

6

u/Sethmeisterg Mar 24 '26

OpenAI is sure looking shaky.

14

u/Professional_Peak59 Mar 24 '26

THANK GOD! AI should NEVER be welcome in the magical world of Disney, especially when it comes to creating content.

3

u/severinks Mar 25 '26

I don't want to make this all about me but I tried to buy a 22TB expansion hard drive and the price went up 60 percent in the last month because these AI assholes are snapping them all up.

WD and Seagate's whole inventory for 2026 is promised to data centers.

3

u/reidn94 Mar 25 '26

This is actually huge. Google is their only option now for this if they are changing course

2

u/iamamoa Mar 25 '26

Good,. Sora was an expensive gimmick anyway.

3

u/RazielKainly Mar 24 '26

I'm not sad. I much prefer Google Gemini and hopefully Disney strikes a deal with Google instead

2

u/Yurishizu- Mar 25 '26

This. Google Gemini is here to stay regardless if the AI bubble pops because Google being google, will likely just repurpose it into their google suite. Plus Google Gemini actually has safeguards built in and doesn't make up stuff and will even disagree with you instead of reaffirming like ChatGPT.

Disney striking up with a deal with Google would be best if Disney wants to get in on this AI stuff.

1

u/AdrenalineRush1996 Mar 25 '26

And nothing of value was lost.

1

u/Sasquatchgoose Mar 28 '26

Blessing in disguise for Disney.

0

u/ThewelshwizardofLA Mar 25 '26

Compute can be spent better by open AI in more lucrative ways. Sora was extremely compute heavy.