As streaming services continue to scramble for ways to compete with social media, Disney just announced a new deal with TikTok that will bring user-created content to Disney Plus. As part of the streamer's new “Verts” feature on the mobile app, select Disney-themed TikToks from participating creators will appear on the platform, with “characters and stories from across Disney’s brands including Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, FX and more.”
TikTok will gain access to assets related to Disney films and series, while Disney Plus will have a feed of related TikTok videos. The press release announcing the move describes this as a way to “engage subscribers more deeply in timely fan conversations, building stronger communities, and ultimately, helping them engage with more story formats across Disney Plus.”
“The best storytellers are fans first,” said Asad Ayaz, chief marketing and brand officer, The Walt Disney Company. “That has always been true at Disney, and today, fans are celebrating our stories in entirely new ways. This collaboration creates a new bridge between the stories we tell and the creativity they inspire, giving creators a bigger stage to share what they’ve made, and audiences more to discover on Disney Plus every day.”
TikTok creators will be incentivized to participate through the Disney Creator Ambassador Program, allowing creators to “unlock special rewards” while providing them with “increased visibility, access to exclusive events and career development pathways.” Disney further justified the move by citing internal TikTok data that fans shared an average of 6.5 million film- and TV-related posts on TikTok each day last year, and that nearly half of surveyed viewers said they watched a movie or TV show after discovering it on TikTok.
Disney clearly views the partnership as a way to reward creators while promoting its own content for free, but the timing of the announcement isn’t ideal. In a very controversial decision, the streamer recently canceled one of its most well-received TV shows in years, the Emmy-nominated Wonder Man, after previously green-lighting a second season. The series' showrunner, Andrew Guest, said that scheduling issues aren't to blame for the cancellation and that the situation stems from Disney's and Marvel Studios' current plan for the MCU.
"Yahya, Destin, Sir Ben, and I all loved making this show, all felt passionately about continuing to do it, and were eager to," Guest explained. "Contracts were signed. Schedules were cleared. The writers' room was supposed to start this week. The production was supposed to begin early next year, and there was a decision made internally between Disney and Marvel that this didn't make sense for them, even though a few months ago it did."
TikTok remains a controversial company due to concerns that the Chinese government could access user data through TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance. After threats of a TikTok ban, the Trump administration made a deal with the company for it to continue operating in the United States. Since then, TikTok users have claimed that they were censored when posting videos that directly or indirectly criticized Trump and his allies.
Disney’s TikTok deal seems to be a replacement for its previously planned partnership with OpenAI’s Sora, an AI video-generation tool that was eventually shut down due to cost inefficiencies. Regardless, the focus on user-created content has many worried about a dive in quality from Disney Plus.