MarvelBlog News for December 14th, 2025

The Walt Disney Company just announced a deal that will thrill Marvel fans.

One day soon, you can legally create your own videos starring Marvel characters.

Of course, there are several catches, but this is a watershed week for MarvelBlog News.

About the Deal

So, unless you’ve been offline all week, you’ve probably heard the news by now.

Disney has entered into an agreement with OpenAI to license roughly 200 characters.

For a period of three years, OpenAI will have access to these years, and it’s an exclusive deal in year one.

The language of the contract suggests that other AI entities can make the same agreement for 2027.

That’s when the exclusivity expires, presuming that OpenAI doesn’t offer additional conditions to extend those rights.

Everyone in Hollywood is absolutely freaked out about this deal, including several guilds.

In case you’ve forgotten, these unions went on strike in 2023 to avoid this very scenario.

Now, they’re living out their worst nightmare as Disney has agreed to an AI deal.

What’s involved in the agreement? Well, at a minimum, you’ll have lots of fun with Sora.

The text-to-video automated generation app will introduce officially licensed Disney characters in 2026.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking. Yes, you can technically already do this.

However, when you make these images and 30-second videos now, you and OpenAI are breaking the law.

You’re violating all sorts of closely guarded copyrights and trademarks because you don’t have the rights.

That’s why this deal matters so much to all involved. Disney has become the first studio to flip.

In the ultimate example of, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” Disney has accepted its fate.

AI-generated images are already a thing to the point that tens of millions of people do it every day.

While the legalities of the matter will eventually get settled in court, it’s still gonna happen.

So, Disney just chose to get ahead of the curve.

Your Marvel Mini-Movies

Now, before you get too excited, I’ll describe the vital caveats here.

Are you familiar with NIL deals in college sports? Well, they’re important to this discussion.

NIL stands for name, image, and likeness, and it applies to AI creations as well.

Every individual holds a claim to their name, image, and likeness, especially celebrities.

Therefore, Disney cannot very well license the NIL of the various performers in the MCU.

People like Robert Downey Jr. and Scarlett Johansson will have to do that on their own.

And that’s a fight that will be bloody and contentious right up until somebody flips, just like Disney did.

At that point, many performers will recognize how much money they’ll get in doing so and agree.

For the time being, squabbles over residuals prevent anyone from seeing the forest for the trees.

Of course, that’s just the most famous people. Less famous actors correctly view AI as an existential threat.

Thus, Disney has sagely sidestepped that issue altogether. This deal includes no NIL.

While you will be able to use Captain America and Black Panther in your videos, they won’t have voices.

Well, they may, but those voices will be AI-generated, and they better sound nothing like Chris Evans.

Otherwise, OpenAI will run afoul of Disney, just as Google did the other day.

The Mouse cracked down on Gemini by sending an aggressive cease-and-desist letter.

Google can buy its way out of this mess at a later date, but we’re nowhere near there yet.

The companies aren’t getting along well at the moment, although money heals all wounds on Wall Street.

For the time being, Disney is providing OpenAI for this deal in exchange for buying a $1 billion stake in the company.

Who Can You Use?

Those are the specifics of the deal thus far, although it’s likely to change some in the coming months.

Still, Disney’s announcement included a list of some of the 200 characters involved.

The Marvel names you know are:

• Black Panther
• Captain America
• Deadpool
• Groot
• Iron Man
• Loki
• Thor
• Thanos

So, you can put together your own 30-second mini-masterpiece starring many Avengers.

You can also introduce Darth Vader and characters from Frozen if you like.

That’s the thing about AI. It doesn’t need to make sense, as long as it’s modestly entertaining for a moment.

Disney railed against the idea until this week, but now the company is just fine with your AI slop.

Feel free to do whatever you like, as long as it doesn’t involve swearing, sex, drugs, or alcohol.

Oh, you also cannot cross streams by having Disney characters interact with other brands.

So, the Minions, Harry Potter, and Star Trek are off-limits.

That’s a huge no-no for the time being…unless you’re Fortnite.

Marvel Miscellany

We’ve got a few other stories to cover quickly.

For starters, Spider-Man: Brand New Day has reportedly finished filming.

I’ll let you know if/when reshoots are required, which is pretty much guaranteed these days.

For those of you like me who can’t get enough of Avengers: Endgame, I have good news.

My go-to in-flight entertainment will make a triumphant return to theaters on September 25th, 2026.

That’s Marvel’s way of reminding people how much they loved the Avengers in 2019.

Would that we could all go back to those days, right? Well, it’s not all bad.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps has been nominated for a People’s Choice Award.

That sounds good, right? Let me check the category. Okay, it’s…Best Production Design. Oh.

On the Avengers: Doomsday front, Brazil apparently has the trailer airing in theaters.

You should expect some leaks to go online this week, possibly by the time you read this.

Finally, Ben Mankiewicz interviewed The Mandarin, and it’s FUNNY!

 

 

 

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