Sam Altman is trying to convince Hollywood that Sora won't destroy the movie business

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

• Sam Altman’s looking to win over movie studios with Sora, OpenAI’s new video-generating tool.
• He recently held a series of meetings with Hollywood executives, the Financial Times reported. 
• Some studios appear receptive to using the tool in production.

Sam Altman seems to be trying to convince Hollywood executives that his latest AI tool won’t destroy the movie business.

Altman’s OpenAI unveiled its video generator Sora in February. The tool, which is not available to the public yet, creates realistic videos based on user prompts.

The videos can be up to a minute long, and can consist of “complex scenes with multiple characters, specific types of motion, and accurate details,” the company said.

Altman and Brad Lightcap, OpenAI’s chief operating officer, recently held a series of meetings about Sora with Hollywood executives from Paramount, Universal, and Warner Bros Discovery, the Financial Times reported.

They asked studio executives to help them roll out Sora, according to people who attended the meetings and spoke to the newspaper.

Some studios were receptive to using the tool in production, saying it could save time and money, but OpenAI didn’t attempt to forge formal agreements, people who attended the meetings told the FT.

The move comes after most TV and movie production was disrupted by major strikes from actors and writers against studios last year, partly fuelled by concerns that some jobs would be lost to AI.

Filmmaker Tyler Perry said he feared the impact of AI on the creative industries and had halted the planned expansion of one of his production studios because of Sora.

Sora released the first third-party videos produced by the tool on Monday, which included flying pigs and an underwater fashion show.

It’s not the only text-to-video tool that might soon be available, with rivals in the works from Google-backed startup Runway, Meta’s Emu Video, and Google’s Lumiere.

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