Disney and TikTok have agreed a deal which will allow creators to use clips from Disney films, including its subsidiaries, in their videos.
It means clips from hit franchises like Star Wars, Toy Story and the Marvel Cinematic Universe will soon start popping up in videos – which will also be shared on Disney’s short-form video platform, Verts.
The scheme will be launched in the US before being rolled out to other countries.
Neither company shared financial details of the agreement, although it follows the collapse of a $1bn (£745m) deal between Disney and OpenAI which would have let people use its characters in AI-generated videos.
That agreement was cancelled in March when OpenAI shut down its AI video generation tool Sora, citing a decision to focus on other parts of its business.
“Today, fans are celebrating our stories in entirely new ways,” said Disney’s chief marketing and brand officer Asad Ayaz, following the TikTok deal being announced.
“Disney owns some of the world’s biggest franchises but ownership of attention is shifting towards creators,” social media expert Matt Navarra told BBC News.
“Hollywood used to market at fans – now it needs to give fans the raw materials to market with it, and that is quite a profound shift.”
TikTok said its platform saw an average of 6.5 million posts relating to film and TV per day last year.
Fans like to use clips from films and TV shows in their videos, but without express permission, they would often be taken down due to copyright claims.
This makes it harder for a wide audience to engage with fan-created content around a big release.
TikTok would also benefit from the “credibility of becoming a formal distribution partner to one of Hollywood’s biggest studios,” Navarra said.
He added that TikTok’s recommendation algorithm gives it the power to “influence which character or scene or forgotten franchise suddenly becomes very valuable again”.
Disney and TikTok said a jointly-run programme would boost some creators’ videos and give them access to exclusive events.
“This is a deal that repositions and recovers Disney in the UGC [user-generated content] space following the content gap left by the sudden collapse of Sora,” Gareth Sutcliffe from Enders Analysis said.
But he said it was not without risk.
“There is an ongoing safety debate around TikTok under European online rules,” he said.
“At a minimum, Disney will need to employ significant guardrails to curate the creator content that is selected.”
Online creators and influencers are becoming more important to brands’ marketing strategies.
Last year, a report from Oxford Economics said YouTube content creators contributed £2.2bn to the UK economy in 2024 and supported 45,000 jobs.
There is also a recognition that even very small influencers, who focus on niche topics, might have lower follower counts but come with a hyper-engaged audience.
Disney launched its short form video platform Verts in the US in March, with plans to expand that further around the world.
