‘The Wizard of Oz’ Could Be Adapted to Screen at the Sphere in Las Vegas

Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore. We’re in Vegas, baby.

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“The Wizard of Oz,” a classic as famous as any movie ever made, could soon play on the biggest (and roundest) movie screen in the country: Sphere.

According to a report in the New York Post , Warner Bros. Discovery has been in talks with James Dolan’s Las Vegas Sphere on a top secret project to adapt “The Wizard of Oz” into an immersive, visual experience. To fit it to the screen, the Post says the 102-minute film would become an 80-minute, “digitally-enhanced, sensory spectacle.”

What’s more, the Post says Sphere will spend $80 million on the project to get it to fit on that 18K wraparound LED screen, with Warner Bros. getting a 5 percent cut of the overall gross profits.

Casino.org , which originally reported the news, says the companies have been in talks since June and that Sphere is also planning another experience film about U2, the band that launched Sphere with its inaugural residency of concerts.

No word on how much a ticket to a “Wizard of Oz” experience would cost or when it would run, but The Sphere in between concert residencies is regularly showing Darren Aronofsky’s experiential film “Postcards from Earth” and is reportedly bringing in more consistent profit from those showings than from live concerts, which can be costly to generate an entire stage show for. That 55-minute movie screens three times a day, and the cheapest tickets go for $94.

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Reps for Warner Bros. Discovery and The Sphere did not respond to IndieWire’s request for comment.

Since opening last September, the $2.3 billion Sphere in Vegas has had some trouble attracting consistent live musical acts to the space. After U2 performed there, other bands like Phish and Dead & Company have also had residencies, and the Eagles are also planning their own residency for next month through the end of the year.

If any classic movie would be a fit for a massive IMAX-esque immersive experience in Vegas, you can see why “The Wizard of Oz” would be a good choice. The film’s famous sequence moving from black and white into Technicolor as soon as Dorothy sets foot in Oz could be creatively adapted into an awe-inspiring moment in that space. Same for the sound plugged into each seat that could enhance the experience of the tornado whooshing through Kansas or the Wicked Witch of the West cackling in the Oz skies.

IndieWire wrote in its review of the space and Aronofsky’s film last year that “the scope of the images in front of, on the sides, above, and even behind the audience offers an immediacy that is begging to be utilized for a more traditional narrative feature.” Sounds like they found one.