OpenAI in Talks to Revive Sora Through Hollywood AI Startup

OpenAI is exploring a potential deal that could give its discontinued Sora video-generation technology a second life through a new startup focused on professional filmmaking. According to a report published by The Information on October 12, 2026, the startup is negotiating with OpenAI to access Sora, customise its capabilities and develop commercial software and services for the film industry. The venture was reportedly co-founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg, a prominent Hollywood producer, Bill Peebles, who previously led Sora research at OpenAI, and Sujay Jaswa, former chief financial officer of Dropbox. The startup’s name has not yet been publicly disclosed, and the discussions remain ongoing. If an agreement is reached, the arrangement could allow OpenAI to recover some value from technology it previously decided to discontinue.

Sora attracted considerable attention for its ability to generate realistic video clips from written prompts, images and other instructions. The technology demonstrated how artificial intelligence could transform creative production by allowing users to generate scenes, experiment with visual concepts and develop video content without traditional filming equipment. However, running advanced video-generation models requires substantial computing resources, making them expensive to operate at scale. OpenAI discontinued the Sora web and app experiences in April 2026 and subsequently ended API access in September. The company said the decision formed part of a broader effort to prioritise its core AI products and redirect computing resources towards areas such as coding, enterprise services and other strategic projects.

The proposed partnership would represent a different commercial strategy from Sora’s original consumer-focused approach. Rather than operating a large public-facing video platform, the startup reportedly intends to build specialised tools for filmmakers, studios and other professional users. These products could potentially help creative teams develop visual concepts, produce preliminary footage and experiment with scenes before committing resources to physical production. Having Peebles involved could also be valuable because of his previous experience leading Sora’s development. However, the negotiations have not yet established exactly which capabilities the startup would receive, how much access it would have to the underlying technology or when any commercial products might become available.

One of the most important unanswered questions concerns access to Sora’s model weights, the internal parameters that determine how a trained AI model processes instructions and generates outputs. According to The Information, it remains unclear whether OpenAI will transfer these weights or provide another form of access that allows substantial customisation. The distinction matters because access to the underlying model could give the startup greater control over adapting the technology for filmmaking workflows. A licensing or customised-access arrangement could also allow OpenAI to retain control over important intellectual property while benefiting financially from the startup’s commercial activities. The report says OpenAI could receive an equity stake in the new venture if a deal is completed, although the potential size of that stake has not been disclosed.

The discussions also highlight the continuing challenge of turning advanced AI demonstrations into sustainable businesses. Sora showed the creative potential of generative video, but high computing costs and questions about monetisation made it difficult to justify maintaining the consumer service alongside OpenAI’s other priorities. A specialised business serving professional filmmakers could pursue a different revenue model, potentially charging customers for tools integrated into established production workflows. Nevertheless, the venture would still need to address technical reliability, copyright, licensing, privacy and the practical demands of professional production. For OpenAI, a successful agreement could preserve the commercial value of Sora without requiring the company to rebuild its former consumer platform. For now, however, the negotiations are preliminary, and neither a completed agreement nor a relaunch date has been confirmed.