Sora Is Dead: What Does That Mean for Disney? Plus, ‘The Bachelorette’ Scandal.

Summary

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Podcast Summary: “Sora Is Dead: What Does That Mean for Disney? Plus, ‘The Bachelorette’ Scandal.”

Podcast: The Town with Matthew Belloni (The Ringer)
Date: March 25, 2026
Host: Matthew Belloni
Guests: Alex Heath (Sources, Access podcast), Craig Horlbeck (Producer)

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Overview:

This episode explores two major Hollywood business disruptions:

1. The abrupt shutdown of Sora, OpenAI’s generative video app, and its ramifications for Disney – especially concerning their scrapped billion-dollar partnership and its broader digital ambitions.
2. The “Bachelorette” scandal, examining ABC/Disney’s decision to scrap the entire season after domestic violence revelations about the lead, as well as the broader realities of reality TV risk-taking.

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1. The Sora & Disney Fallout

Sora’s Demise and Disney’s Unraveling Tech Bet

Key Discussion Points:

• OpenAI’s Pivot Away from Sora:
  Sora, once hailed as a groundbreaking generative AI video app, has been suddenly shuttered. Disney’s high-profile $1 billion partnership with OpenAI, granting access to 200 iconic characters, is now canceled, and Disney gets its money back.

  • “OpenAI announced it’s shutting down Sora entirely, prioritizing other more business-focused uses for its AI technology. Funny videos, even funny videos with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, not as big of a priority now.” (Matthew Belloni, 01:47)
  • The deal was never fully papered or executed—more of a handshake driven by Bob Iger, not new CEO Josh D’Amaro.

• OpenAI’s Shift from Entertainment to Enterprise & Coding:

  • As Alex Heath shares: “…these labs live and die by the GPUs that power the AI…They are very compute constrained and…are in the middle of a pretty dramatic pivot…into the enterprise and AI coding to compete with Anthropic and Claude.” (Alex Heath, 06:05)
  • Sora was internally considered a “side quest,” axed due to a need to focus on high-priority, revenue-generating AI products—especially in software coding.

• Why Sora (and the Disney Deal) Didn’t Work:

  • User traction dropped sharply after restrictions on copyrighted content.
  • Mainstream appeal fizzled; without the ability to remix popular IP, user engagement lagged.
  • “If you don’t have copyrighted characters in your app, it’s a little less compelling…” (Belloni, 10:31)
  • Internally at OpenAI: “Fiji Simo…recently told employees, we’re going to have no more side quests. And guess what? Sora was killed the next week.” (Heath, 07:38)

Notable Quotes:

• “The way the tech companies in the AI labs feel about the entertainment industry…let’s just say they don’t think about it as much as the entertainment industry thinks about them.” (Heath, 05:40)
• “It’s like Don Draper in the elevator…‘I don’t think about you at all.’” (Belloni, 06:28)

Timestamps:

• Sora/Disney context: 00:29–04:43
• OpenAI’s pivot explanation: 06:00–08:00
• Engagement and IP remix debate: 10:31–11:22

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What’s Next for Disney’s Digital Strategy?

• Leadership Dynamics:

  • The Sora deal belongs to Bob Iger, not Josh D’Amaro; D’Amaro is painted as relatively unphased by its collapse.
  • “This was Bob Iger’s deal. Bob Iger now likely going back to Thrive Capital as an advisor…” (Belloni, 03:43)

• Future of Disney & AI:

  • Disney might partner with other AI labs or build its own proprietary tech stack.
  • “There’s plenty of other off-the-shelf video generation tools now…Google has a great one…” (Heath, 12:10)
  • The OpenAI deal may have been more a legal/strategic move against Google than about truly betting on Sora.

• Narrative Loss & Wall Street Perception:

  • The deal at least offered a “digital growth” narrative for Wall Street, now gone.
  • “That was at least a digital narrative…now they’ve got to figure out a replacement there.” (Belloni, 13:08)

• GPUs and AI Product Prioritization:

  • Nvidia’s critical role – “...these labs live and die by the GPUs that power the AI...” (Heath, 06:05; 14:36).

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2. Epic Games & Disney: Fortnite’s Fumble and Gaming Bets

Key Points:

• Disney’s $1.5B Stake in Epic and Fortnite Concerns:

  • Same day as Sora’s shutdown: Epic Games cut 1,000 workers after lackluster Fortnite updates.
  • Disney’s digital “metaverse” world, intended to launch on Fortnite, suddenly looks risky.

• Buyout Rumors and Strategic Value:

  • Internal debate at Disney: Should they wait to acquire Epic outright?
  • “I know for a fact there are senior executives in Disney who want them to buy Epic and are just waiting for that moment…” (Heath, 17:48)
  • Epic’s founder Tim Sweeney controls the company, akin to Steve Jobs with Pixar—making the path to acquisition complicated.

• Gaming as Social & Narrative Lifeboat for Disney:

  • Despite Fortnite’s recent stumbles, the space (notably Roblox) is still “the future of not only gaming, but social media for young people.” (Heath, 19:42)
  • Integration with Disney’s IP remains a critical, aspirational vision.
  • “Disney needs some kind of growth narrative…because they have to replace the cable bundle money somehow.” (Belloni, 23:19)

Memorable Moments:

• “Can you imagine taking your son to a Fortnite Disney Park? I mean, he would go crazy.” (Heath, 23:19)

Timestamps:

• Epic Games layoffs & Disney’s stake: 16:43–17:48
• Potential buyout debate: 17:48–19:19
• Gaming as a future narrative: 19:42–24:21

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3. The ‘Bachelorette’ Scandal & Reality TV Risk

What Happened:

• ABC cancels the entire new “Bachelorette” season after discovering lead Taylor Frankie Paul’s domestic violence history and a video showing her throwing chairs with a child present. The selection had been an intentional shakeup: bringing the first non-franchise “Mormon Wives” influencer as lead.

Analysis & Business Impact:

• Reality TV Strategy & Risk:

  • “When you are in the reality TV game, you push the line…then occasionally it goes over the line and the entire thing blows up. That’s what happened here.” (Belloni, 25:08)

• Disney's Rationale & Fallout:

  • Disney/ABC rolled the dice on an “edgy” casting to revive the franchise, but the risk backfired.
  • “The second Disney saw that there was a kid involved…they said, we’re pulling the plug.” (Belloni, 26:07)
  • Losses: $30-$40 million in sunk production/advertising costs.

• Will The Franchise Survive?

  • Rachel Lindsay (former ‘Bachelorette’) predicted this could be the end, but Belloni disagrees.
  • “My prediction is they actually can come back…the Bachelor franchise will come back. It cannot be killed like this.” (Belloni, 27:53; 30:47)

• Who’s to Blame?

  • No major Disney firings expected; decision was made eyes wide open.
  • “Disney doesn’t really operate that way. Dizzy—it’s this like big monolith. I think by firing someone is a progressive company.” (Belloni, 29:29)

Notable Quotes & Lighthearted Moments:

• “Maybe they’ll get Bluey. Bluey should be the Bachelor…No track record. No domestic violence history.” (Belloni, 30:08)
• “There needs to be a dating show where you—it’s like Love is Blind, except one of the suitors is AI and you don’t know until the big reveal.” (Belloni, 30:19–30:39)
• “That’s unfortunately a great idea.” (Craig, 30:46)

Timestamps:

• Bachelorette scandal breakdown: 24:38–30:47

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4. Memorable Quotes & Key Moments

• On Hollywood & AI Labs:
  “They don’t think about [Hollywood] as much as the entertainment industry thinks about them.” (Heath, 05:40)
• On AI Priorities:
  “Wednesday Adams and Peter Griffin having dinner—not as much of a priority.” (Belloni, 07:34)
• On Sora’s Engagement:
  “If it wasn’t a side quest, if it was a giant platform and business, they wouldn’t kill it.” (Heath, 08:39)
• On Disney’s Gaming Narrative:
  “Disney needs some kind of growth narrative…better shows and movies is not the narrative because they have to replace the cable bundle money somehow.” (Belloni, 23:19)
• On Reality TV Risk:
  “When you are in the reality TV game, you push the line…occasionally it goes over the line and the entire thing blows up.” (Belloni, 25:08)
• On Reality TV Comebacks:
  “The Bachelor franchise will come back. It cannot be killed like this.” (Belloni, 30:47)

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Takeaways

• Disney’s digital future is wobbly. Two major “narrative” bets—AI video via Sora/OpenAI and immersive gaming with Fortnite/Epic—were hit with serious setbacks within 24 hours. The Sora flop exposes how little priority Hollywood has in AI’s eyes, and Disney’s digital “growth” story to Wall Street is back in question.

• Epic Games remains a tantalizing but tricky acquisition target. Disney buying Epic could instantly transform its gaming and digital stature, but Epic’s founder-controlled status and recent operational challenges complicate the dynamics.

• Reality TV remains high-risk, high-reward. ABC/Disney’s failed gamble to break the “Bachelorette” casting mold cost millions and ignited an optics nightmare, but the hosts believe the franchise will find a way to survive.

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Timestamps Quick Reference

• Disney/OpenAI/Sora: 00:29–14:35
• Epic Games/Fortnite: 16:43–24:33
• The Bachelorette Scandal: 24:38–31:04

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For listeners seeking a behind-the-scenes look at how tech, IP, and risk-taking drive (and upend) Hollywood strategy, this episode is essential. The tone mixes candid industry analysis with wit and self-awareness, hallmarks of Belloni's hosting style.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Foreign. This episode of the Town is brought to you by the Madison, the new original series on Paramount. Plus, it's Academy Award nominee Taylor Sheridan's most intimate story yet. A New York City family is uprooted to Montana after an unexpected tragedy. In the quiet majesty of the Madison Valley, they confront love and loss, discovering resilience and the transformative power of family and the land that grounds them. Led by a powerhouse cast, Academy Award nominee Michelle Pfeiffer and Golden Globe nominee Kurt Russell. Don't miss the Madison, the highly anticipated new series, streaming now only on Paramount. Plus it is Wednesday, March 25th. Not a great first week for new Disney CEO Josh Tomorrow. Not just talking about the whole Bachelorette scandal, although we'll get to that in the call sheet. If you were listening to the Town last fall, you heard me unloading on Sora, the video app from OpenAI that was pitched as a show huge breakthrough in generative AI but was basically a gigantic copyright infringement machine. OpenAI quickly backtracked and disabled the use of copyrighted characters and likenesses of actors who didn't give permission. And then in December, Disney announced a broad partnership with OpenAI in which 200 characters like Yoda and Homer Simpson would be made available to Sora for use in videos. Somewhat controversial, that deal. And Disney also agreed to invest a billion dollars in OpenAI. Cut to yesterday and OpenAI announced it's shutting down Sora entirely, prioritizing other more business focused uses for its AI technology. Funny videos, Even funny videos with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck not as big of a priority now. And for that reason, the Disney partnership is also canceled. They're getting their billion dollars back too. That same exact day, Epic Games announced that it was laying off a thousand employees after their new version of Fortnite kind of faltered with fans. Remember, Josh Tomorrow was the chief architect of a $1.5 billion investment in Epic that Disney announced two years ago. They've been working on a new digital universe tied to Disney characters and stories that will still happen, I'm told, but obviously if there's less interest in Fortnite, there's likely going to be less interest in whatever Disney launches in Fortnite. At least that's the theory. So how big a deal is this? Where does the collapse of one digital partner and the precarious situation at another leave Disney? I've got Alex Heath here to discuss. Alex is a veteran technology reporter. He's covered the AI race really closely, and he's got his own media outlet called Sources. We're going to get into the Disney failed OpenAI deal. Josh, tomorrow's bet on Fortnite, what that means and what might be next after two big digital setbacks from the Ringer and Puck. I'm Matt Bellany, and this is the Town. Okay. We are here with Alex Heath, who is the author of the Sources newsletter and co host of the Access podcast about the tech industry. Welcome, Alex.

[C]

Thanks for having me, Matt. Longtime listener, first time caller here.

[B]

Oh, I appreciate that. So we are talking about OpenAI and Disney and Epic Games and all of the digital debacles of the past week. I hate to call it a debacle, maybe it's not a debacle, but I think it's not a great first week for Josh tomorrow at Disney. Grand scheme of things, he doesn't care too much about OpenAI. That was Bob Iger's deal. Bob Iger now likely going back to Thrive Capital as an advisor, one of the big OpenAI investors. But I want you to contextualize this for the Hollywood people, because this was put out there as, you know, part of the future of the Walt Disney Company. We have to embrace technology. We have to be in bed with some of these companies that are maybe not core and maybe not people that we want to be in bed with, but we have to do it if we want our content to be meeting people where they are. What's going on here? This was an app that was so potentially disruptive that it got Disney interested in doing a big partnership. So what's going on?

[C]

I know Hollywood freaked out for about six months, and then it just went away.

[B]

I freaked out.

[C]

Why did you freak out?

[B]

I was pretty angry when I saw the initial version of Sora because I downloaded the app, went on there, and within two minutes, I could put a video up of Wednesday Adams having dinner with Peter Griffin from Family Guy. And I'm like, first of all, these are not just copyrighted characters, but that was actually Jenna Ortega doing something that Jenna Ortega was not going to do. So I complained. Sag, AFTRA complained, everybody complained, and they walked it back. But now, six months later, after this big Disney deal, they're walking away. Why?

[C]

Well, for all of the hand wringing that Hollywood and I can say we, since I live in la, we have done here in LA about this. This was not that much of a priority for OpenAI. And to be honest, it's interesting to hear you, in retrospect, talk about how Disney announced the deal. I forgot how big of a deal they made it. And that's interesting because they never fully papered the deal. It was just like a handshake agreement

[B]

they were preparing, apparently to turn it over.

[C]

Yeah. Not sure they were quite staking the future of the company's technology on this if you don't actually get a deal done after six months. But it turns out that this was not something that OpenAI felt it needed to focus on right now. I talk about this constantly because I travel a lot between LA and San Francisco. I was just up there yesterday at OpenAI. And the way that the tech companies in the AI labs feel about the entertainment industry, let's just say they don't think about it as much as the entertainment industry thinks about them.

[B]

Is it like Don Draper in the elevator where the guy's like, I despise you. And he's like, I don't think about you at all?

[C]

Exactly. And the reality of what's happening inside OpenAI is they need to reallocate resources. Not only people, but more importantly, computer. It's probably hard for people who aren't steeped in this to understand, but these labs live and die by the GPUs that power the AI that they provide. There's a very limited number of them. Even with all the headlines about how much OpenAI has been spending, they are very compute constrained and they're in the middle of a pretty dramatic pivot, as you know, the headlines have been saying over the last week or two into the enterprise and AI coding to compete with Anthropic and Claude, because it's in the tech industry that is seen as the holy grail. That's how you're getting to more powerful AI AGI eventually. And OpenAI feels very behind on coding specifically. And so they're marshaling all their resources and more importantly, all their GPUs into that and building the super app for professionals to compete with Claude.

[B]

So Wednesday, Adams and Peter Griffin having dinner. Not as much of a priority.

[C]

Not as much of a priority. And when you look at everything they're doing, they've been spread kind of thin, you know, Fiji. Simo, a senior executive there there recently told employees, we're going to have no more side quests. And guess what? Sora was killed the next week. So Sora is the first side quest to fall victim to this new strategy. But it is pretty jarring. I mean, even inside OpenAI, the team didn't know that this was coming. I mean, this was a very fast decision also to shut down the API. I was literally at a conference NSF yesterday, where all of the graphics for what we were seeing, what we were shown around the keynote, were generated with Sora. Like, people are using that in production. Right. And that's going away.

[B]

That's my question to you is like, yes, they frame this as it's a side quest and not as much of a priority. But how much of this has been. How much of this decision was driven by the fact that SORA hasn't quite caught on in the mainstream like they may have hoped?

[C]

If it wasn't a side quest, if it was a giant platform and business, they wouldn't kill it. Right. Like, they're not killing chatgpt to focus on coding. But, yeah, it didn't catch on.

[B]

And I went into ChatGPT. Craig can attest to this. I went into ChatGPT literally yesterday and created the Moana Maui character with the rock's flowing hair, but with Craig's face and Lucas's face and my face on it. And ChatGPT served up those images.

[C]

That's beautiful. Is that gonna be the album cover for this episode?

[B]

We maybe. We were thinking of maybe putting them on their Instagram. I think now we kind of have to. They weren't great. Craig's looked a little bit more like a. Mine was not great. And then Lucas had said it, flagged it for nudity or inappropriate content. I don't know.

[C]

Now I really want to see it. Well, I mean, look, the image generation and ChatGPT is not going away, so you're still going to be able to create those wonderful images. Yeah, but they were going to integrate Sora into ChatGPT. This was actually something Fiji told me just barely two months ago. So they were working on that. They literally published a content policy document for Sora the day before this decision. And, you know, there's reporting out there that the OpenAI team was working with Disney on this integration as recently as the night before. So this was a very quick decision. But this is how the AI labs move. Things move incredibly fast. When I go there, everyone's always, like, blown away by, like, how much time has passed since I last saw them. Because every day Feels like a year in AI land. And just the competition is so fierce on coding and productivity that this entertainment stuff is just. Yeah, it's not a big platform. It wasn't growing like it used to. I mean, everyone remembers that Sora pop, like, when it came out, it was at the top of the App Store. Right. And then it kind of fizzled. It had pretty decent retention and engagement, but it wasn't growing the way that it used to.

[B]

Shocker. If you don't have copyrighted characters in your app, it's a little less compelling to people. Which. Do you think this would have worked? Do you think that Disney giving them 200 characters so people can turn their family photos into lightsaber battles, do you think that would have worked on Disney?

[C]

I'm not sure. I mean, I would have loved to have seen that. I don't think Disney was really close to actually implementing that. I don't know. Disney's always been flirting with ugc. I remember back in the day when it was looking at buying Twitter. It's an interesting concept, remixing with AI, remixing their ip. They can still do this, by the way. Sora is now.

[B]

Well, that's gonna be my next question.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Where does this leave tomorrow? This was not his deal. This was Bob Iger's deal.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And some have even suggested that he's not exactly pissed that it's going away because of the issues that you just brought up, but he's got to do something in this space. Right. There's other AI companies out there that would prioritize working with a company like Disney. Right.

[C]

I guess. You know, I feel like Disney's in a. And all these, you know, entertainment companies are in a position where they can either really embrace this stuff or they can throw their walls up and become these kind of hollowed grounds of IP that AI cannot touch. Right. And if. Or just go fully vertical integrated where, like, Disney owns the full tech stack. No other AI model can use their stuff. They build their own models. I know that's been a discussion internally. They've been back and forth on that. I don't know where the new CEO Josh, like, falls on that spectrum, but there's plenty of other off the shelf, you know, video generation tools now. I mean, Google has a great one. There's. There's many.

[B]

Is it through Gemini?

[C]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, they call it something different, but it's that. That stack.

[B]

And yeah, there was a lot of speculation when the open AI deal was announced that this was Disney putting more, more pressure on Google to do their own deals.

[C]

Yeah, because they. I remember they filed. They filed lawsuits at the same time that they.

[B]

It wasn't a lawsuit, it was a. It was a demand letter, I believe.

[C]

Demand letter, yes.

[B]

They made a legal claim.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

The same day they announced the OpenAI deal.

[C]

Right.

[B]

And maybe now they'll go into the arms of Google.

[C]

That's how I always understood that OpenAI deal was that it was really born out of. They were pissed about the IP infringement. And Sam Altman and OpenAI saw Disney as a good, you know, partner to also signal to the industry that they'll take this seriously and fix it. Because there was that equity component where Disney could, you know, get a billion dollars worth of OpenAI equity for investing in the company. So, yeah, I mean, is it great?

[B]

That was at least something. That was at least a digital narrative. Maybe that would have been worth 100, 200 times the billion dollars they put in someday. And it was something that the Wall street community could at least say Disney was caring about this space. Now they've got to figure out a replacement there.

[C]

Do they? I mean, I don't know.

[B]

Maybe they don't, but you would think they do.

[C]

Or they gave away their ip. I mean, or they gave away their IP for a billion dollars. Like, that's also the other argument. I mean, yeah, I feel like they're. OpenAI is just. Unstable is not the right word, I guess, but incredibly twitchy and reacting to a lot of things. And the entertainment industry is not in the pecking order of the top of that list.

[B]

Do you think they are going to be the dominant player in AI?

[C]

I think in consumer, they are, no question. I mean, ChatGPT is the Kleenex of these chatbots. What everyone is moving to is if you've used Claude, Cowork, which is a version of Claude that basically does coding in the background without you knowing it. It's like a coding AI for normies, and it can do all kinds of interesting agentic stuff, take over your machine, do multiple things in parallel. That's where these products are going, that's where chat is going, and that's what they're focused on. And Sora was just kind of a distraction and an expensive one. I mean, you know, it costs millions of dollars a day to service.

[B]

Sora, you mentioned GPUs. Explain what GPUs are.

[C]

Oh, sure. They are the chips that power all of this. It's why Nvidia is the most valuable company in the world. Nvidia makes these chips and they Power the AI from Sora to chat to everything else. And there's a very, very limited supply of them. And the biggest fight inside these labs constantly is how to allocate GPUs because they have a roadmap and they can't do everything on the roadmap because of their GPU shortage. And so, yeah, I think that's like SORA was the first victim. They're going to cancel other things, but, you know, this very expensive multimodal, which is just fancy term for like visual graphics, audio model, just didn't make sense in this new world where they've got to catch up on coding.

[D]

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[B]

Now, that deal was one that Josh tomorrow at Disney may not have been 100% behind. We know he was 500% behind this epic Games relationship that Disney has, where they are developing a world, an experience within Fortnite. Then on the same day that the open AI deal unraveled, Epic announced a thousand layoffs. Yeah, and specifically they announced the layoffs because they said that Fortnite was not catching on. The new versions of Fortnite people are not into not growing.

[C]

Not growing like it has been.

[B]

Yeah, right.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

So what does that mean for Disney? Would you be. Would you be actually stressed about that if you're tomorrow or is it, you know, they say it's still going strong, that they're still going to do what they're planning to do.

[C]

I think if Epic went away, Disney would be fine, right? There's Roblox, there's other open world platforms like this.

[B]

They put all their chips into this. There were rumors that Disney might even buy Epic games at some point.

[C]

I know for a fact there are senior executives in Disney who want them to buy Epic and are just waiting for that moment. And then there's others who think it's a bad idea. So I think if Epic ever sold, if it ever decided to call it quits on being an independent company, Disney would be the most natural home for it for a lot of reasons. For the park integration. Can you imagine a Fortnite park to all the open world integrating Disney IP into it, which they've already announced, and also Disney's gaming platform. And I can see that. But at the same time you have to understand Epic is a founder controlled company. So Tim Sweeney there, the founder, has full voting stock control and can make unilateral decisions. And it's really up to him. And as we saw, he was the guy who went to battle against the app stores, against Apple and Google to open those up. And it's almost an illogical crusade when you're running a company like Epic to do something like that. And even acknowledges in the layoff email like that cost us. But that kind of thinking is something that I think is going to keep Disney a little bit at arm's length until, I don't know, people would have

[B]

said the same thing about Steve Jobs and Pixar maybe. And then all of a sudden they were feuding with Michael Eisner, they were thinking about maybe ending their distribution deal with Disney. And then the new CEO Iger comes in and six months later they have a deal.

[C]

Well, has any of this Disney stuff with Epic even materialized? They haven't launched any of the worlds or anything, which is also kind of crazy. It's taken a while.

[B]

It has. And you know, but if Fortnite, if this is the beginning of a long series, slow decline for Fortnite, which I'm not sure it is, I don't think it is. But if it is, then it's not great if Disney's putting all their chips into a declining business, gaming in general

[C]

is having a hard time. But if you look at Roblox's growth, which is where Epic has been trying to take Fortnite into more of an open world creator first ecosystem where Creators can build businesses building on top of Fortnite, Roblox is just killing it with that. And I think, you know, these experiences are probably still the future of not only gaming, but social media for young people. Right. They're hanging out in these worlds.

[B]

I've got a 10 year old, he's hanging out in Fortnite with his buddies.

[C]

Yeah. So like Fortnite's not dead. You're 10 year olds hanging out there. A lot of 10 year old.

[B]

And he would be stoked if all of a sudden, you know, Tony Stark showed up and the, and Yoda and a bunch of Jedis and they could play with those.

[C]

It's the best combination to potentially actually challenge Roblox is dominance here. And you know, you can call it gaming, but it's really entertainment and it's also social media. So yeah, I mean, Disney's on the cap table. They're supposed to be doing this integration. If Josh, I don't know where do you feel like. So you, you think Josh loves that deal or at least long term.

[B]

He mentioned it in his remarks to shareholders. He did not pointedly mention the open AI deal in his remarks to shareholders.

[C]

Well, it wasn't done. That's why. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

I mean, and he, and he sees it as a linchpin of the entire interactivity of Disney plus.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Where if Disney plus becomes the portal into your entire Disney experience, including shopping, gaming, socializing and, you know, luxuriating in the Disney brand. Yeah, that Fortnite is a part of that for sure.

[C]

Also Epic has the Unreal engine, which is a huge part of production for everything from Mandalorian to a ton of shows. Right.

[B]

So I've seen it. I went, I went to Playa Vista. John. John Favreau showed it to me. This is like seven years ago now when he was making Mandalorian. Yeah. And it's pretty impressive.

[C]

It is.

[B]

And I was like, you have to use a gaming engine for this. Like you're fricking Disney. He's like, yeah, they have the best one.

[C]

They do. And you know, Epic, I think over hired in the pandemic, the reaction to gaming going through the roof when everyone was in lockdown. Right. Like a lot of other companies, they don't have the benefit of the rigor of being a public company like Roblox. And they're also founder controlled. So sometimes that leads to things like this where you have to pull things back. Epic's not going away. But yeah, I mean, if Tim ever kind of realizes, like, hey, this is just a Slog on my own. I mean, he's already a billionaire multiple times over, so it's hard to know where his incentives lie here. But I think he wants the company to be a thing that lasts way beyond him. And he has big, big ideas about technology and platforms in the future. And I think if he ever, you know, decided, like, look, I think it's better if I take a step back and the company go to another home, it would be Disney. I mean, there's no question. I think Josh would want it. A lot of the executive team would want it. And the deal would probably pay for itself, honestly, in the first day when they announced it in the stock price. I think investors would look at this and go, man, this is a great link up. This is something that can actually challenge the tech platforms and Roblox.

[B]

You think so?

[C]

I think if they did the integration well and they integrated Fortnite into Disney's IP and Disney's cinematic universe, not just the other way around. So a Fortnite Park, Right. I think that wouldn't be very cool. Can you imagine taking your son to like a Fortnite Disney Park? I mean, he would. He would go crazy.

[B]

He would love it. Yeah. But the thing is, is the. They needed narrative. Disney needs some kind of growth narrative. And better shows and movies is not the narrative because they have to replace the cable bundle money somehow. And nobody has really figured it out amongst the legacy studios what that narrative is going to be. And Disney, I think, is the best positioned because they have the best brand and the best IP to lure some kind of partner like an Epic. And I don't know if Tim Sweeney wants to ultimately be an employee of the Walt Disney Company. Sounds like you think he doesn't.

[C]

I do not. But I think. I think if that happens, Tim's gone.

[B]

Yeah, but it does. This would change that narrative in a way that maybe Bob iger thought an OpenAI press release would do. It didn't seem to really do much for them, and obviously now it's going away. But maybe that helps the Disney narrative because they got to do something in interactivity in digital.

[C]

Well, Epic has shown that it's struggling with these layoffs, so maybe the opportune time is coming. I mean, if Epic's getting to this point, then maybe those discussions will have. I mean, I'm sure you'll break that if that does happen, right?

[B]

We'll see. All right, thank you, Alex. Appreciate you coming on the show.

[C]

Thanks, Matt. Appreciate it.

[B]

We are back with the call sheet. Craig, how closely are you monitoring this Bachelorette scandal? I know you are not a regular viewer of the Bachelorette franchise, but did you know who this person, Taylor Frankie Paul was before the scandal?

[E]

No, I don't watch the Mormon Wives show. And she's the first person they pick to to be the lead. That's outside of the Bachelor universe. I did used to watch the Bachelor and Bachelorette a lot. I was even in a Bachelor fantasy league. So I used to be in the world, and then I kind of got out of it.

[B]

We'll get to that in another episode. That serious character flaw you just revealed. But whatever. The point is, this show is now imploded and they cancel the entire season. And we've been debating whether to do an episode on this. I've been resisting because to me, this is a pretty easy analysis. When you are in the reality TV game, you push the line. You get into business with crazy people. You push them, push them, push them, and then occasionally it goes over the line and the entire thing blows up. That's what happened here.

[E]

Yes. But it's a clear attempt by ABC and the Bachelor franchise to try to revitalize and inject some energy. This, because sticking to people that come from the Bachelor world was boring. It's like Dancing with the Stars being like, you know what? We're just going to have a bunch of influencers on the show. And it worked. They were like, we need to get somebody from the outside world. And it did generate a lot of buzz, but ultimately too much buzz, because one thing they knew about some of the domestic violence charges prior to casting

[B]

her, they knew that she had pled guilty to a misdemeanor domestic violence charge and there were many other charges against her. Now, Disney says they did not know about this video, which, if you haven't seen it, it's really awful. It is throwing chairs at her partner. I'm sure in most domestic violence cases, what we see on the video is not the entirety of their relationship. She has said that, you know, it was abusive on both sides, but the second Disney saw that there was a kid involved, there's a kid in this video, they said, we're pulling the plug.

[E]

When the kid was allegedly hit by one of the stools. The video, it's. It's funny how this stuff works because the second the video comes out, that's when things get bad. You see it in sports. There was the big Ray Rice scandal where he allegedly hit a woman in an elevator. They suspended him for a couple games, but then the video comes out. It looks Terrible. Even though it's the same report. And then they have to actually extend the suspension, just like ABC now got rid of this season of the show.

[B]

So the question is, for our purposes, is what are the business ramifications here? Yes, they lost 30 to $40 million on the season, probably more. When you talk about advertising relationships, maybe this is the end of the Bachelor franchise. Rachel Lindsay was on the Bachelor Party podcast, a ringer pod and she said, this is the end. They can't come back. My prediction is they actually can come back. I think that the Bachelor will come back. They will figure out a way to lean into this and discuss it. They're not going to air this season. I don't believe in its entirety. I think they will figure out a way to address it on the show and bring back the franchise in some way that at least tries to salvage it.

[E]

So you think the season never airs. Maybe they do like some tell all type thing, but the season will not come back. But the show will.

[B]

I do think so. Now there's all sorts of other things. I think these threats against the show by contestants. Oh, you put us in danger. Oh, you know, we lost opportunities not being on the show. That's bullshit. That Mark Garrigo is the lawyer, can say whatever he wants.

[E]

Like the male contestants saying they were put in danger.

[B]

Yes, that's what they're, that's what. Look, Mark Garagos did a TMZ piece where he's talking about how they may sue. These releases are so ironclad that I, I now granted. Every reality producer I've talked to since this broke has said there's one rule in dating shows. You do not put someone on the show if you know they have a history of domestic violence.

[E]

Well, what I was going to say is, is this would have never happened if the lead was a man. If the, if the man had these, these, these issues, there's zero chance they would have cast this person.

[B]

Of course. But it wasn't a man. It was a woman. And I've talked to people at Disney who said that they, you know, she has been sober, she has been saying the right things about wanting to move on with her life. They wanted to give her a second chance. They thought they could contain it during the show and they admitted this was good ratings. Yeah, like everybody, like everyone's asking me, oh, who's going to get fired at Disney? No one's getting fired because they all knew what they were doing. Rob Mills, who runs reality for them, this was his idea. He suggested it Apparently. But Deb o', Connell, who is running the TV division now, and Dana Walden, who's running all content, they knew this was happening. They leaned in because Hulu's biggest show is the Mormon Wives Show. And if they could sprinkle a little dust on the Bachelorette and bring it back using synergy, you got to try.

[E]

I understand the idea, but you don't think there has to be a fall guy here?

[B]

I don't. I think at most companies there probably would, but Disney doesn't really operate that way. Dizzy. It's this, like, big monolith. I think by firing someone is a progressive company.

[E]

I mean, how. How are you supposed to explain why you cast a woman who had been charged with domestic assault?

[B]

They say we wanted to give her a second chance and we didn't know the extent of it. We made. We were made aware of the video and we acted promptly.

[E]

Okay.

[B]

That's what you say, I guess. Yeah, it's. It. Trust me, it's. It smells bad. But they're going to move on and they, you know, they'll find somebody else to be the Bachelor or the Bachelorette. Maybe they'll get Bluey. Bluey should be the Bachelor.

[E]

The animated dog.

[B]

Yes.

[E]

No.

[B]

No track record. No domestic violence history.

[E]

Yeah. And maybe they could have used Sora to just make an AI Bachelor, but they can't do that anymore.

[B]

They should. The AI Bachelor would be huge. There needs to be a dating show where you. It's like Love is Blind. Didn't I say this on the show once already? I don't know. I forget if I did Love is Blind. Except one of the suitors is a. And you don't know until the big reveal.

[E]

Oh, God. That's probably going to happen.

[B]

It's got to happen. It's got. They should do a season of the Bachelor. Some of the contestants are AI that's

[E]

unfortunately a great idea.

[B]

We're off topic. But my prediction is the Bachelor franchise will come back. It cannot be killed like this. All right, that's the show for today. I want to thank my guest, Alex Heath, producer Craig Horlbeck, our editor Jon Jones and I want to thank you. We'll see you one more time this week.

[A]

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[B]

Quick pause. Something useful for you.

[C]

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