The Yellow Brick Road just got longer.
On Thursday, the Las Vegas Sphere will premiere a new version of Victor Fleming’s iconic 1939 Americana film “The Wizard of Oz” with some major adjustments. The story is shorter, the visual quality is upscaled — and digital effects and AI have been used to expand the movie for the Sphere’s unique wraparound screen.
“It’s an experiential film,” producer Jane Rosenthal told TheWrap. “But it’s ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ first and foremost.”
This new take on “The Wizard of Oz” finds itself at the center of much debate among moviegoers and industry figures. It arrives at a precarious time in Hollywood, one where any use of artificial intelligence, particularly as it concerns generating new images and performances, is closely examined with a concerned eye. This project itself already endured criticism after early footage aired on “CBS Sunday Morning” last month.
They are concerns not fully shared by Ben Grossmann, an Oscar-winning VFX artist and CEO of Magnopus, a tech company that uses digital tools to create immersive experiences such as those found at Sphere. Grossmann and Magnopus worked on the film, with Grossmann overseeing effects on the project.
“I see people ranting on the internet about, you know, AI is stealing artists’ work, and things like that,” Grossmann told TheWrap. “I don’t think you understand how artists work, because for 30 years, I’ve been working for famous Hollywood filmmakers who come to me with another artist’s work and say, ‘See this picture from this movie? We want to do something like that.’”
Several times, the creators of “The Wizard of Oz at Sphere” emphasized to TheWrap that you have to see the film to write about it, calling it a gargantuan experience unlike any other in cinema. Beyond the 16K-resolution expanded screen of 160,000 square feet, the presentation uses Sphere’s atmospheric capabilities, including surround sound and 4D environmental control, to give the film a transportive quality — not unlike early audiences being immersed in the Technicolor world of Oz.
TheWrap did not screen the film ahead of Thursday’s premiere.
A technological safe haven
The unveiling of “The Wizard of Oz at Sphere” was not met with broad approval online. After the aforementioned “CBS Sunday Morning” segment aired, one user took to X to mock the updated graphics that look “terrible in motion.” Film critic Courtney Howard pointed out that the show’s high price point (with tickets costing more than $100) would prevent most people from truly “discovering” the nearly century-old classic in this format.
“Very strange part of the ‘Wizard of Oz Sphere’ thing is that it’s roughly 95% headroom,” one user said on X. “The AI extended screen bit covers most everything, the action still seems confined to the bottom middle of the screen.” (When talking about the translation of close-ups from the original film to Sphere, Grossmann asked, “Do you want to look at a close-up of a 200-foot-tall face?”)
Grossmann insisted this is what the filmmakers of “Oz” would do today if given the capabilities.
“The original movie already exists. We don’t have to improve it,” he said. “We don’t need to fix it. There’s nothing broken about it. It still exists. You can go watch it at home, you can watch it in a movie theater.”
Grossmann said the process started with his crew attempting to recreate the look of “The Wizard of Oz” as closely as possible, adopting the matte painting aesthetic to fit the gargantuan space of Sphere. Eventually, they instead sought to find a middle ground between recreation and innovation.
“We’re trying to create something new that puts you inside the movie. So why are we trying to faithfully reproduce things that were not intentional creative choices? They were actually technological limitations. Why don’t we do what the filmmakers would’ve done if they were here today and see what that looks like?”
Grossmann said he wanted the “Wizard of Oz” experience at the Sphere to be a technological safe haven, one where artists and engineers were free to experiment with new instruments to create an experience solely suited for this venue. The VFX artist, who won an Oscar for Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” and an Emmy for “The Triangle,” likened AI to a paintbrush, an evolution of the old ways.
“I spend more time creating and less time in the technicalities of shoving pixels around,” Grossmann said.
Grossmann spoke of “The Wizard of Oz” with reverence. He and the Sphere team went through vast archives of matte paintings and production notes, trying to render the film for the gargantuan format with as much information as possible. Grossmann noted that the experience, with pixel resolution higher than the human eye can see, is meant to feel as if you are in Oz rather than simply watching it on a screen.
Big changes and big reactions
The expansion came with some changes. Listed on Sphere’s website at only 75 minutes, this version of “The Wizard of Oz” is nearly a half hour shorter than the original. Film grain has been digitally removed for smoother visuals (Grossmann called film grain an “obligation” of older movies, asking, “Are your eyes grainy? Because we’re creating an experience that’s more like the human eye than a film stock from 1939”).
In some newly expanded shots, characters that were once off-screen for certain moments must now be visible to audience members, such as where Dorothy is on-camera and her uncle exits the frame. Sphere used AI modeling to reinsert these characters into their expanded frames, using information from other scenes featuring their performances to fill in the gaps of what they would be doing off-screen in the original cut.
Like a traditional blockbuster, it’s a project that took years, with thousands of collaborators. It also had the blessing of Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who on his earnings call earlier this month praised the upcoming showing as “very innovative.” That’s not a big surprise; the Vegas presentation could drive traditional rental and purchase of the original.
One prominent cinematographer who spoke to TheWrap said the new tech-driven version may infuse some excitement into going to the movies.
“There is a real danger to the movie-going experience in terms of the modern cultural connection to that community experience that is really in a precarious place,” the cinematographer, who didn’t wish to be named, said. “The fact that people are going to have that community experience is a really important and good thing.”
But the new tech’s changes to “The Wizard of Oz” drew online ire when they were featured in a July “CBS Sunday Morning” segment previewing the event.
TCM host Ben Mankiewicz defended the film, saying it would bring “The Wizard of Oz” to new audiences. But the comments drew backlash, with social media users questioning how someone committed to the preservation of film could sign off on the project. Mankiewicz later took to X to say, “I have an advantage. I’ve seen it. It’s ‘The Wizard of Oz.’”
Rosenthal, an Academy Award-nominated producer and longtime collaborator with Robert De Niro, said she has her own concerns with making sure individuals own their images. However, she emphasized that Sphere is using “AI for good” through this production.
“AI has become such a buzzword in the industry … It’s really a unique way we’re using it in terms of the respect that we have for the film,” she said. “Any of the stuff that was written, it’s like, hater’s gonna hate. What am I going to do? You haven’t seen it.”
In preparation for Thursday’s premiere, Rosenthal said she watched the film at least six times in the span of 48 hours. She’s excited to see it anew with audiences for the first time.
“(‘The Wizard of Oz’) spans generations,” she said. “I could watch it with my daughters, and I could watch it with my mother. And now this weekend, my mother and my daughters and I will all sit in the Sphere and watch it together.”
