- 1939 Classic The Wizard of Oz comes to the Las Vegas sphere
- Using the power of the AI, Google is reinventing the film for the 16K spherical screen
- Oz’s wizard in the sphere opens on August 28
The Oz Wizard It comes to the Las Vegas sphere, and everything is thanks to Google’s incredible technology.
After the announcement of last week that the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz is reinventing for the iconic 16K Led Led Led Theater of Las Vegas, which will open on August 28, Google is now taking a look behind the scene to the magic behind the production.
While The Oz Wizard It was not the first film that was filmed in color, it is often referred to as one of the first experiences of true films to capture the color efficiently, thanks to its incredible mixture of colors and the use of black and white in the scenes of Kansas of the film.
In the publication of the Google blog, the company says: “Similarly,” The Wizard of Oz “may not be the first film to be reconceptualized with AI, but soon it can also be known for that.”
This is a massive project that combines teams in Google Deepmind, Google Cloud, Sphere Studios, Magnopus and Warner Bros. Discovery to create an incredible experience, which comes from the success of Wicked, which develops in the same world as The Oz Wizard.
With the launch of Evil: Forever Located by November 2025, it is the perfect time to put the eyes on the film that inspired Elphaba and the musical epic of two parts of Glinda.
The power of technology and AI will be shown The Oz Wizard In the “spherical space of 17,600 place seats to create an immersive sensory experience”, and Google says that “the generative AI will take the center of the stage, along with Dorothy, Toto and more Munchkins than could fit into a multiplex.”
How to turn a classic into a modern epic
Google blog post on the work that has been done to bring The Oz Wizard To the sphere there is nothing less than amazing.
The man behind the project, Buzz Hays, is the world leader for the solutions of the entertainment industry on Google Cloud and a veteran producer in the world of Hollywood.
He said: “We are starting with the original image of four by three in a 35 mm celluloid piece: it is actually three negatives of granulated and granulated films; this is how they filmed technicolor,” says Hays. “That will obviously not work on a screen that is 160,000 square feet. Therefore, we are working with Sphere Studios, Magnopus and artists of visual effects around the world, along with our AI models, to give life to the original characters and environments on a completely new canvas, creating an immersive entertainment experience that still respects the original in every way.”
The sphere has the highest resolution screen in the world, which means The Oz WizardThe 1939 grenades would have caused a big problem for experience. Fortunately, the equipment found solutions they used I see, image and gemini to completely transform the film using a “Super Resolution ‘tool based on AI to convert those small 1939 celluloid frames into ultra-ultra definition images that will appear inside the sphere”.
After the increase in the scale, the equipment performs a process called Ai Outpainting, which essentially expands the scenes of the Oz Magician to adapt to the largest space found on the massive screen. AI then generates elements of the actions to complete the created space and make the shots look and feel perfect.
Keeping the soul of the original
While I do not blame if you think this sounds like a catastrophe generated by AI, ruining a classic with which it should not be involved, Google emphasizes how the team has the traditions of cinema at the forefront of each decision.
“In addition to the old images, the team toured the archives to build a vast collection of complementary material, such as the shooting script, the production illustrations, the photographs, the established plans and the scores.”
Then, these materials were loaded with VER and Gemini to train the models and build on the “specific details of the original characters, their environments and even elements of production, such as camera focal lengths for specific scenes.”
“With much more source material than only the 102 -minute film to work, the quality of the exits improved dramatically. Now, Dorothy’s freckles focus and toto can run more perfectly through more scenes.”
