A reconceived and trimmed-down version of The Wizard of Oz at Sphere in Las Vegas has sold 2.2 million tickets and brought in $290 million in ticket revenue since opening last August.
The updated metrics were disclosed Thursday by Sphere Entertainment CEO James Dolan. The exec described the AI-enabled title “an important blueprint for our long-term vision” during a quarterly earnings call with Wall Street analysts.
Blessed by Warner Bros and brought to the spherical venue by producers including Jane Rosenthal and technology from Google DeepMind, the new version has a running time of 75 minutes. Nearly a half-hour shorter than the 1939 original, the Vegas incarnation is able to squeeze in multiple daily showtimes, alternating with live musical acts like the Backstreet Boys and Phish. It is also highly interactive, with drone-controlled monkeys flying around the auditorium, tornado-simulating wind machines and bonus experiences in the merch-filled lobby.
Dolan didn’t get specific about what will be in the “enhanced” version of Oz. The one currently playing is a wholesale rethink of the film – by necessity, given it is filling the largest screen in the world, a vastly different canvas than the rectangular ones in traditional movie theaters. Controversially, it used AI to refocus or restore characters cut from the original, and even integrated fleeting images of Dolan and Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav in one black-and-white sequence.
“I’m not even sure, to be honest, whether we need Wizard of Oz 2.0 with the demand that we’re seeing” for the current one, Dolan said on the call. “But we’re gonna, we’re gonna do it anyway. … I think that will probably give that product even more legs, and then we have product behind it that we think is going to be maybe as good as Wizard of Oz.”
From The Edge is a planned feature project announced in tandem with the Wizard of Oz revamp. The extreme sports documentary is directed by the Oscar-winning pair from Free Solo, E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin. The film will feature free diver Alenka Artnik, skier Markus Eder, rock climber Alex Honnold, BASE jumper Katie Hansen Lajeunesse, and surfer Kai Lenny, immersing audiences in the world of extreme sports.
Dolan said From The Edge would likely open in the fourth quarter of 2026, though it possibly could “slip into the first quarter” of 2027 depending on the trajectory of Oz.
The CEO also confirmed that Sphere is “in discussions with other IP holders” about bringing their projects to Vegas. “There’s some great products out there, that we would like to develop, while we develop some of our own ideas.”
For now, the company has just one location, but it is building another one in Abu Dhabi, which is at the “pre-construction” phase, Dolan said Thursday, with an exact location to be announced soon. Sphere also said last month it plans to add a smaller-sized venue on the coast of Maryland, near Washington, D.C. Dolan said that harbor project could be completed in “four years or less.” Several other domestic and international expansion possibilities are also being explored, he added.
Capacity is somewhat constrained for now, Dolan conceded. Nevertheless, he said, “every IP holder that we talk to is incredibly enthusiastic about taking their IP and putting it into this new medium. They all would like to do it. There’s just a question of, what’s the payback for them, what’s the value of it, and how much revenue can we build off of their IP?”
The Wizard of Oz, in some respects, made for an ideal pilot effort. While it is revered as a totem of Golden Age Hollywood, it went through a handful of directors and has no auteur behind it, with Warner Bros the main gatekeeper. A host of blockbuster projects from more recent eras could encounter a lot more complications, especially with regard to alterations to the director’s cut.
