Katzenberg-Led Startup Seeks to Revive OpenAI's Abandoned Sora as Professional Filmmaking Tool

A startup co-founded by Hollywood veteran Jeffrey Katzenberg and Bill Peebles, the former head of OpenAI's Sora video research, is in talks with OpenAI to license and deeply customize the shelved Sora model for professional filmmakers—potentially recovering technology that became too expensive for the AI company to operate at consumer scale. OpenAI discontinued Sora in April 2026 after the model hemorrhaged operational costs estimated at $1 million per day while generating only $2.1 million in lifetime revenue. The shutdown marked a dramatic reversal from a December 2025 partnership with Disney, which had invested $1 billion to bring 200+ licensed characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars to the platform—only to see that ambition collapse four months later as user engagement dropped from a peak of 1 million to fewer than 500,000.