Disney+ partners with TikTok to bring fan-made clips into its 'Verts' short-video feed
Disney announces a global deal with TikTok to feature fan-made videos based on Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars in the Disney+ app's short-form video feed, alongside a new Creator Ambassador program offering perks to creators
The Walt Disney Company officially announced its partnership with TikTok on Wednesday, August 5, with both sides calling it a "first-of-its-kind global deal" that will bring fan-made content from TikTok directly into the Disney+ app.
Under the deal, short videos created by fans on TikTok about Disney franchises — including Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars — will be curated and featured in "Verts," the short-form video feed Disney+ launched just a few months ago. Clips from creators who opt into the program will appear simultaneously on both TikTok and Verts within Disney+. The deal will begin rolling out in the United States in the coming months before expanding to other markets worldwide.
In addition, Disney unveiled the "Disney Creator Ambassador Program," which will give TikTok creators access to the company's massive content library, along with opportunities to earn rewards, gain visibility, attend special events, and advance their careers.
The move comes with interesting context: late last year, Disney invested $1 billion in OpenAI, tied to a three-year licensing deal that would have let people create short videos featuring Disney characters on the AI video-generation platform Sora. That plan collapsed after OpenAI abruptly shut down Sora in March. The TikTok deal therefore looks like a pivot back to betting on "real people" creating content, rather than relying on AI-generated video.
TikTok's own numbers help explain Disney's interest. Internal platform data shows that last year, fans posted an average of 6.5 million posts per day about movies and TV on TikTok. With the streaming business competing fiercely against social media for viewers' time, pulling the power of creators into its own app is a strategy Disney hopes will keep younger audiences engaged.
This deal reflects the growing trend of major streaming services competing with social media for viewers' time, and Thai fans of Marvel, Pixar, or Star Wars may soon see — or even create — fan-made content on Disney+ once the program expands beyond the US market.