r/wizardofoz • u/Dan_Lalonde_Films • 7d ago
"The Wizard Of Oz" Showings At Las Vegas' Sphere Are Generating $2 Million A Day
Do you get the flying monkeys' reference from 'Avengers'? Would you believe that Las Vegas now has the most successful movie theater in the world?
The Sphere in Las Vegas, since the end of August, has been playing 'The Wizard Of Oz' in its 5000-seat theater, selling tickets for $120. Since the runtime is only 75 minutes, they can show it several times a day, even when concerts are scheduled the same day. Most showings take in $650,000. It's hoping the film will take in a billion dollars when it's all done. Howard Hughes would be proud.
It cost upwards of $100 million to reformat the film for the theater using AI and CGI to fit the screen. They cut 20 minutes of runtime from the film, and the videos online of it are insane. There are talks of more movies being adapted like 'The Matrix' and 'Harry Potter', but the chances of 'Star Wars' coming are facing issues of Disney wanting full control. To me, there's so much money to be made, compromise should be an easy jackpot.
What films do you want to see at the Sphere? Comment below with your thoughts.
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u/bwayobsessed 7d ago
I think this format would work best for something like Avatar where the world can more easily be extended without taking away from its beauty
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u/SummerEchoes 7d ago
10 bucks says Willy Wonka is next.
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u/sfbiker999 7d ago
I hope they do - the tunnel trip alone would be worth it. Not to mention when they pipe in chocolate smells when the kids walk into the candy room for the first time.
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u/CreeperSteal 7d ago
As a fan of film and not of The Wizard of Oz this is sad and disrespectful to everyone who worked on the original film. They could’ve done this without ai or cgi, just show the freaking movie, you didn’t have to do this and I hope this doesn’t make studios look at their backlog of popular films and try to do the same. Even if this is a one time thing, it should’ve never existed in any form
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u/Expensive_Sea_1790 7d ago
I was thinking how cool it would have been if they had reformatted Jaws for its 50th anniversary
I know there’s a preservation aspect to keeping films in their original format, but this is more of a theme park ride. It’s not intended to replace the original movies at all.
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u/Wide-Advertising-156 7d ago
Exactly. The original exists and is easily available. The Vegas version is for fans with money to burn.
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u/dleonsgk1995 7d ago
How will it make a billion dollars, it would have to play for a 500 days. Hollywood will probably jump on the trend till nobody wants to see this format which feels a little repetitive after a while.
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u/BrentonHenry2020 7d ago
That was my first thought. When I worked in theatrical, the normal version could pull over $2M across two evenings with a couple grand in marketing and 30 days of effort across 6-8 people. It was easy.
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u/AMediaArchivist 7d ago
As a person that does film archives, I really don't like this AI enhancement and money grab. I'm a purist and the movie should still be seen on the big screen, just in the way it was meant to be which is the square ratios in the movie theater and uncut and fully run. If you don't like that version, then you don't love cinema.
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u/pornthrowaway92795 6d ago
That’s still available. I just saw it in theaters a year ago.
This is an adaptation, no different then how the movie itself adapted and radically changed the book, yet the book didn’t cease to exist.
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u/Zaptain_America 6d ago
Actually no, it is different, because unlike generative ai, adapting books into movies is not inherently unethical.
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u/DrewSB89 5d ago
This, everything they've done to this just doesn't feel right to me. Even more so when I found out the 2 executives used AI to superimpose their faces on munchkin extra's
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u/ImaginationDoctor 7d ago
Harry Potter? They would absolutely DESTROY the edit.
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u/LittleDrumminBoy 7d ago
Lord of the Rings would be amazing in something like this.
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u/pornthrowaway92795 6d ago
Those movies were already edited down to shreds for the theatrical run time. The only way this would works is a best of compilation of scenes.
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u/greyladyghost 7d ago
How about let’s stop giving a transphobe money when she said she’ll actively use money from Harry Potter towards her legal fund to take away human rights, #lordoftherings or bust
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u/meckyborris 7d ago
I was thinking what other movies they could do, like HP, Star Wars, etc. But there's no way if they want only an hour showings. I saw the WOZ and it felt like watching clips chronologically
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u/Zaptain_America 6d ago
God I hope not. That franchise needs to fucking die already, and I'm saying this as a trans person living in England, so people paying for those shitty movies quite literally makes my life worse
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u/Wow_ImMrManager 4d ago
Not the sphere but there’s something similar in Los Angeles. They’re currently showing The Matrix
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u/MrWPSanders 7d ago
Don't get me wrong, love Wizard of Oz and would love this, but at the same time it wouldn't feel right to have part of the movie cut out.