If you haven’t yet set foot inside the Las Vegas Sphere, chances are you’ve still seen it online — even though pictures and video really don’t do justice to the enormous glowing orb that looks like it plopped out of the sky and landed just off the Strip from some distant future.
The first time I went, after making my way through the gawkers and selfie-takers outside, I caught myself just staring up in awe. It was hard not to marvel at this multi-billion-dollar monument to the kind of excess and one-of-a-kind-ness that only a place like Sin City can deliver. Inside the Sphere, the vibe is part shopping mall, part sci-fi spaceport. It’s both the weirdest and the perfect place to host a months-long screening of “The Wizard of Oz,” which is set to get started next week.
I first visited back in the fall of 2023, when the highlight of my experience was watching director Darren Aronofsky’s “Postcard From Earth” at the Sphere. It felt at the time like the most jaw-dropping movie experience of my life. Seats shook as elephants walked across the screen. A cool breeze drifted by as the camera soared over icy mountaintops, while a citrusy scent filled the air during a scene of fruit being picked. I walked out thinking: How in the world does anyone go back to a normal theater after this?
The Wizard of Oz at the Las Vegas Sphere
Now imagine that same level of sensory immersion applied to a Hollywood classic. Starting August 28, the Sphere will transport audiences back to 1939 and the world of “The Wizard of Oz.”
Picture the tornado sequence stretched across 160,000 square feet of LED panels — three football fields worth of screen, rising 22 stories above you. Thanks to haptic and 4D technology, you’ll feel the rumble and wind of the tornado along with other visceral surprises as you go on Dorothy’s journey with her. Behind the scenes, the Sphere team and Warner Bros. have leaned on advanced AI tools to adapt the film into a format that works with the venue’s wraparound screen and cutting-edge technology.
Industry insiders are already calling it a milestone in how Hollywood can pair AI with human creativity to breathe new life into old material. All of which is to say: You might think you know “The Wizard of Oz,” maybe even by heart. The point, though, is that the whole thing has pretty much been rebuilt for the 21st century. The film’s music has even been re-recorded in order to take full advantage of the 167,000 speakers that comprise the sound system at the Sphere.
If you think about it, this is all a reminder that classic stories can always be made new again. And if walking down the yellow brick road in a way that makes you feel the wind, the weirdness, and the magic of Oz isn’t the future of cinema, I don’t know what is.
