news
Disney just licensed 200+ characters to Sora. The API you would use to build on it shuts down this month.
Two different products named Sora are having opposite years: the consumer app is getting Mickey Mouse and Iron Man, while the developer API sunsets on 24 September.
Two pieces of Sora news have been circulating at the same time, and they point in opposite directions, which is exactly why we are seeing readers conflate them.
The deal: Disney characters are coming to Sora
In December, Disney announced a $1 billion equity investment in OpenAI alongside a three-year licensing agreement that brings more than 200 characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars into the Sora consumer app, Mickey Mouse, Ariel, Cinderella, Iron Man and Darth Vader among them. The deal does not include talent likeness or voices, and curated Sora videos are set to appear on Disney+. Disney also becomes a customer of OpenAI's own tools internally, and the rollout is described as starting in 2026.
This is the first major studio content-licensing deal Sora has landed, and it is a real signal about where OpenAI thinks the consumer product goes next: officially licensed, brand-safe generation rather than the copyright grey zone that defined Sora's first year. It also does nothing to change how Sora 2 scored in our own benchmark before the shutdown; that data stands on its own regardless of what the consumer app does next.
The shutdown: a different Sora entirely
None of that changes what we have already covered in detail. The Sora developer API (the one used to build products and pipelines, not the consumer app people generate videos in directly) shuts down permanently on 24 September 2026, with no successor announced. If you are integrating Sora into a product, the Disney deal has no bearing on your migration deadline. It is a different product, on a different track, aimed at a different user.
The confusion is understandable: OpenAI has not been especially clear in public messaging about which parts of “Sora” are the consumer app (getting new content and studio partnerships) and which are the API (being switched off). We would treat any news headlined simply “Sora” with that split in mind before assuming it applies to whichever version you actually use.
Sources: OpenAI, The Walt Disney Company, CNBC.
Related: OpenAI Sora 2
Daniel Ochoa: Covers model launches, shutdowns and pricing changes as they happen. Reads deprecation notices for a living so you do not have to.