‘Wizard of Oz’ blown up by AI for giant Sphere screen

The massive Las Vegas venue known as Sphere will be screening its first classic movie, “The Wizard of Oz,” starting on August 28. And as detailed in a segment on CBS Sunday Morning, this isn’t just a matter of taking the existing movie and projecting it on Sphere’s 160,000 square foot, wraparound LED screen.

Instead, Sphere Entertainment CEO James Dolan said a 2,000-person team is creating a new experience. That includes using AI to both increase the resolution of the existing film and expand the footage beyond the frame of what was actually shot.

For example, Turner Classic Movie presenter Ben Mankiewicz said that through the use of AI, “a grainy close-up of Dorothy becomes richly detailed, and then through a process called outpainting — though it seems like magic — we see the rest of the Scarecrow, the Yellow Brick Road, and the mountains of Oz.”

In other cases, expanding the frame means creating new performances from the existing actors.

Despite these changes, Dolan said, “Our standard on this was not to modify the film at all but to try and bring you into the film, as if you were in the studio when it was shot.”