‘Ethical AI’ and a Rerecorded ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’

Sphere is promising to take audiences over the rainbow, down the yellow brick road and into an entirely new type of cinematic experience. It’s “The Wizard of Oz” as you’ve never seen it before — not only digitally enhanced but expanded to fit the Las Vegas entertainment complex’s massive 160,000-square foot screen.

“It’s pushing the visual medium,” Jane Rosenthal, one of the new film’s producers, says. “It’s pushing the exhibition of shows and concerts in a way that’s singular, and it’s exhilarating.”

And it’s also controversial, at least among cinephiles, sparking fierce debate ahead of its Aug. 28 premiere about whether you should muck around with a classic. That’s because this “Wizard of Oz” adds characters to scenes (we didn’t see you there, Uncle Henry!) and extends the images projected on screen to fit Sphere’s sprawling canvas. The team behind the film combed the archives at both the Academy and Warner Bros., looking through shot lists, sketches and notebooks from the 1939 original that could inspire and shape their work.

“Some of the things we did were just organic and authentic to what the original filmmaker’s intent was,” says Jennifer Koester, president and chief operating officer of Sphere.

But it’s also true that none of this would be possible without AI — a technological advancement that many in Hollywood worry will cost jobs.

Rosenthal has heard the criticism, but she argues that the use of AI in storytelling is nothing new, likening it to CGI: “Anyone who is talking about this hasn’t seen it, so you’ve got the blind talking to the blind, and they’re upset about AI. AI in the film industry has been used for many years. It’s been used on ‘Jurassic Park,’ ‘Avatar,’ ‘Benjamin Button.’”

The Sphere team says it’s using “ethical models” that have been trained on “The Wizard of Oz” footage, as well as original props and designs, all with the permission of the rights holders.

It also promises a full sensory experience, such as giant wind machines to drop the audience inside a tornado or a boom sound that ricochets around Sphere’s 167,000 speakers as Dorothy taps on the Tin Man’s heart.

“The whole idea of it is you’re not passively watching — you are actively feeling like you’re in it,” Carolyn Blackwood, head of Sphere Studios, says.

The Sphere team is excited for audiences to hear Dorothy singing “Over the Rainbow.” “We ended up rerecording with an orchestra, on the original MGM lot, and in the soundstage where they had recorded the original music. We were able to split the tracks. You can now hear her voice. It’s still her voice, but you’re hearing it pure,” Rosenthal says.

Ultimately, the hope is that presenting “The Wizard of Oz” on the biggest, widest and most decked-out screen imaginable won’t just delight fans; it will introduce new audiences to the story of a little girl from Kansas who came to realize there’s no place like home.

“For people that haven’t seen it before, this is going to totally blow them away,” Koester says.