The Walt Disney Company and TikTok have announced a global partnership that will let creators make short-form videos using clips and assets from Disney’s film and television library, with the resulting content appearing on both TikTok and Disney+. The deal will pilot in the U.S. in the coming months before expanding to other markets, the companies said in a press release.

Participating creators who opt in will have access to assets from hundreds of titles spanning Disney’s Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and FX brands. Their videos will run on TikTok and inside Verts, the vertical short-form feed Disney+ launched in March. Disney said the content will be refreshed regularly to keep subscribers engaged in ongoing fan conversations.

“The best storytellers are fans first,” said Asad Ayaz, Chief Marketing and Brand Officer at The Walt Disney Company. “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+ every day.”

“Creators are at the heart of everything we do at TikTok,” said Dawn Yang, TikTok’s Global Head of Entertainment. “Together with Disney, we’re bringing the authentic creator expression of the TikTok community to Disney+, inviting audiences to experience the shared creativity that makes fandom so powerful.”

The companies are also launching a jointly-run “Disney Creator Ambassador Program,” which will give top-tier creators rewards, increased visibility, access to exclusive events and career development pathways.

Disney cited internal TikTok data showing fans shared an average of 6.5 million film- and TV-related posts on the platform each day last year, and said nearly half of surveyed viewers went on to watch a movie or show on a streaming service after discovering related content on TikTok.

The agreement is one of the first major moves from Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro, who took over the role in March. On his first earnings call as CEO, D’Amaro pointed to Verts as already driving deeper engagement with Disney’s IP and said the company planned to expand its work with creators, including making sure Disney IP “shows up in relevant ways across social platforms.” He separately highlighted the Creator Collection, a distinct catalog of horizontal creator content also distributed across Disney+ and Hulu.

The TikTok deal follows Disney’s decision in December to scrap a planned partnership with OpenAI that would have let users generate AI videos with Disney characters through the video tool Sora, which OpenAI shut down in March. 

Disney+ reports roughly 130 million global subscribers and was the third-most-watched streaming service in the U.S. in May, capturing about 5% of total watch time, according to Nielsen data. Financial terms of the TikTok agreement were not disclosed.

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