September 2, 2025 • 6 mins
ABC News technology reporter Mike Dobuski opens the show with ‘Tech Tuesday.’ Today, Mike talks about AI Wizard of Oz happening at The Sphere in Las Vegas
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's say good morning now to ABC's Mike Debuski. So, Mike,
the Wizard of Oz has blown into Las Vegas and
landed at the now famous Sphere.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Yes, the Sphere is this big new event venue that
people might be familiar with in Las Vegas. It's a
big sphere. It's a big ball essentially that it's kind
of just off the strip in downtown Las Vegas, and
it has a big TV screen on the outside, but
it also has this big TV screen on the inside,
about four football fields worth of sixteen k LED screens
(00:33):
on the inside. And over the weekend they started showing
The Wizard of Oz, what the Library of Congress calls
the most watched movie of all time. However, this version
of The Wizard of Oz that's playing at the Sphere
is a lot different from the one that you or
I might be familiar with from nineteen thirty nine Judy Garland.
Because of the Spheer's design, it has this big curved
screen on the inside that kind of reaches up and
(00:55):
over and behind the audience. The creative team behind it
had to basically take the movie and stretch it out
in all different directions to fit this massive screen. And
they did this with the help of Google's artificial intelligence team.
That's why we're talking about it from the tech angle, essentially,
because there are a couple of different technologies that are
being employed here. For one, they're using a process called
(01:17):
super resolution to basically use AI to sharpen up the images. Again,
when you blow up an image to this degree, you
lose some fidelity, right, it starts to become less clear.
It's the same principle that applies whenever you zoom really
far in on an iPhone photo, right, it gets kind
of muddy. Well, to sharpen that up to fix it. Essentially,
they say that they've used artificial intelligence to kind of
(01:39):
make things a little clearer, and that's just one piece
of this. They're actually also going much further, and this
is where we get into kind of controversial territory in
Hollywood's estimation. They're using this process known as out painting,
where when you're watching The Wizard of Oz, right, you
might only see the you know, Dorothy's shoulders and head, right,
(02:00):
But because there's this big screen now, they actually have
to fill out what the rest of that character looks like.
And they're using artificial intelligence to generate the rest of
her dress and the ruby slippers and what have you.
In some cases, they're actually going even further than that
and creating characters completely. For example, in an early scene
of The Wizard of Oz, the camera moves and cuts
(02:21):
Uncle Henry out of the frame entirely. Because now there's
this wider field of view, Uncle Henry doesn't disappear off
the screen at the sphere, so the creative team had
to use AI to come up with something for him
to do. They called this process performance generation. In promotional videos,
they say they went back to the original script and
the director's notes in the book to inform what that
(02:42):
performance was going to look like. But amy you can imagine,
that is kind of dividing opinion in Hollywood in a
pretty big way. It was not that long ago that
the writers and the actors went on strike in large
part two protest the creeping influence of artificial intelligence in
the industry.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
So when you go see it, you'll see some things
that you've never seen before when watching it.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
But otherwise the movie itself is the same.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
The movie itself is broadly the same. We understand that
it's about thirty minutes shorter than the one that is
broadcast normally. However, what is lost in the process there
is still sort of unclear. It only just opened on Thursday,
so you know, it's it's still sort of you know,
in its early stages. But yeah, somewhere in the editing process,
it seems like they lost about thirty minutes of the film.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Okay, so here's another question.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
So you're talking about it's in sixteen K yeah, and
the most you can get at your house. I mean, like,
I think I have a four K. I think you
can get a little bit higher now. And then it's
that sphere and like you were saying, they have to
stretch it. Does the picture get distorted like it does
in Soaring around the World at Disneyland, where they I
feel tower gets all wonky?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, I mean that is something that you know, they
tried to address here with artificial intelligence so that it
doesn't look all distorted and weird. That's part of the
super resolute piece of this. But you know, you look
at kind of images from inside the sphere, which again
is not a perfect example of the experience of being there,
because you're kind of watching this somewhat three dimensional thing
on a two dimensional screen. But like, yeah, the house
(04:14):
it gets blown away in a tornado is completely invented,
and you can kind of see it, like, you know,
swoop up over you, and it does, I guess, get
a little distorted in that way. Another thing that's happening
here is four D effects they call them, which are
actual live special effects that happen in the room with
you when you go to the Wizard of Oz. So
wind will blow through your hair during the tornado scenes
(04:36):
and maybe your seat will move. And then they have
sort of fake flying monkeys that come down and like
swoop over the audience which would terrify five year old
me because I was not a fan of the flying
monkeys and the Wizard of Oz. But like that's that's
another piece of this as well. There's sort of four
D effects.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Okay, And have you heard much feedback from like audiences?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, So for one, there does seem to be interest
in this. The tickets for this are start at one
hundred and nine dollars and go all the way up
to three hundred and forty nine dollars, so this is
not a cheap normal trip to the movies. This The
company behind it, MSG Entertainment, says they spend about eighty
million dollars modernizing the film. So it's kind of expected
given that, plus this you know, kind of unique venue,
(05:16):
that tickets were going to be a lot pricier than Mankowitz,
who's the host of Turner Classic Movies. He's also the
grandson of Herman Mankowitz, the writer of Citizen Kane. He
in a piece for CBS Sunday Morning, said that this
experience feels like magic. He was a big fan, and
he is, you know, comes from Hollywood royalty, right, So
like that is a guy that you know, you would
want on your side if you're part of the creative
team here. However, others are pushing back on it in
(05:38):
a pretty big way. Slate's review of this called it
an atrocity. Indie Wire said that it is the world's
ugliest oz that's been radically mutilated by AI and on
our air on ABC. Over the weekend, we talked to
Jamel Bowie, who is a columnist for The New York Times,
and he called it an abomination that is an insult
to the very idea of art. His larger idea being
(05:58):
that art, whether it be writing or film or television,
is just as much about what you see as what
you don't see. Right, Framing and cropping and cutting is
part of the artistic process, that's part of the director's vision,
and this is a corruption of that essentially. And again,
the strikes kind of loom over this in a pretty
large way. You can imagine many in the industry are
pushing back on this because of what it represents. Even still,
(06:21):
James Dolan, the guy who owns this sphere, says they've
sold about two hundred thousand tickets to this so far.
So you can imagine that many in Hollywood are going
to be watching this really closely to see if this
is a success or a failure, because it could be
some indicator to the future of the industry.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
All Right, Mike Debuski, ABC News Tech Reporter, thank you
so much, so, of course, Amy tickere
Let's say good morning now to ABC's Mike Debuski. So, Mike,
the Wizard of Oz has blown into Las Vegas and
landed at the now famous Sphere.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Yes, the Sphere is this big new event venue that
people might be familiar with in Las Vegas. It's a
big sphere. It's a big ball essentially that it's kind
of just off the strip in downtown Las Vegas, and
it has a big TV screen on the outside, but
it also has this big TV screen on the inside,
about four football fields worth of sixteen k LED screens
(00:33):
on the inside. And over the weekend they started showing
The Wizard of Oz, what the Library of Congress calls
the most watched movie of all time. However, this version
of The Wizard of Oz that's playing at the Sphere
is a lot different from the one that you or
I might be familiar with from nineteen thirty nine Judy Garland.
Because of the Spheer's design, it has this big curved
screen on the inside that kind of reaches up and
(00:55):
over and behind the audience. The creative team behind it
had to basically take the movie and stretch it out
in all different directions to fit this massive screen. And
they did this with the help of Google's artificial intelligence team.
That's why we're talking about it from the tech angle, essentially,
because there are a couple of different technologies that are
being employed here. For one, they're using a process called
(01:17):
super resolution to basically use AI to sharpen up the images. Again,
when you blow up an image to this degree, you
lose some fidelity, right, it starts to become less clear.
It's the same principle that applies whenever you zoom really
far in on an iPhone photo, right, it gets kind
of muddy. Well, to sharpen that up to fix it. Essentially,
they say that they've used artificial intelligence to kind of
(01:39):
make things a little clearer, and that's just one piece
of this. They're actually also going much further, and this
is where we get into kind of controversial territory in
Hollywood's estimation. They're using this process known as out painting,
where when you're watching The Wizard of Oz, right, you
might only see the you know, Dorothy's shoulders and head, right,
(02:00):
But because there's this big screen now, they actually have
to fill out what the rest of that character looks like.
And they're using artificial intelligence to generate the rest of
her dress and the ruby slippers and what have you.
In some cases, they're actually going even further than that
and creating characters completely. For example, in an early scene
of The Wizard of Oz, the camera moves and cuts
(02:21):
Uncle Henry out of the frame entirely. Because now there's
this wider field of view, Uncle Henry doesn't disappear off
the screen at the sphere, so the creative team had
to use AI to come up with something for him
to do. They called this process performance generation. In promotional videos,
they say they went back to the original script and
the director's notes in the book to inform what that
(02:42):
performance was going to look like. But amy you can imagine,
that is kind of dividing opinion in Hollywood in a
pretty big way. It was not that long ago that
the writers and the actors went on strike in large
part two protest the creeping influence of artificial intelligence in
the industry.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
So when you go see it, you'll see some things
that you've never seen before when watching it.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
But otherwise the movie itself is the same.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
The movie itself is broadly the same. We understand that
it's about thirty minutes shorter than the one that is
broadcast normally. However, what is lost in the process there
is still sort of unclear. It only just opened on Thursday,
so you know, it's it's still sort of you know,
in its early stages. But yeah, somewhere in the editing process,
it seems like they lost about thirty minutes of the film.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Okay, so here's another question.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
So you're talking about it's in sixteen K yeah, and
the most you can get at your house. I mean, like,
I think I have a four K. I think you
can get a little bit higher now. And then it's
that sphere and like you were saying, they have to
stretch it. Does the picture get distorted like it does
in Soaring around the World at Disneyland, where they I
feel tower gets all wonky?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, I mean that is something that you know, they
tried to address here with artificial intelligence so that it
doesn't look all distorted and weird. That's part of the
super resolute piece of this. But you know, you look
at kind of images from inside the sphere, which again
is not a perfect example of the experience of being there,
because you're kind of watching this somewhat three dimensional thing
on a two dimensional screen. But like, yeah, the house
(04:14):
it gets blown away in a tornado is completely invented,
and you can kind of see it, like, you know,
swoop up over you, and it does, I guess, get
a little distorted in that way. Another thing that's happening
here is four D effects they call them, which are
actual live special effects that happen in the room with
you when you go to the Wizard of Oz. So
wind will blow through your hair during the tornado scenes
(04:36):
and maybe your seat will move. And then they have
sort of fake flying monkeys that come down and like
swoop over the audience which would terrify five year old
me because I was not a fan of the flying
monkeys and the Wizard of Oz. But like that's that's
another piece of this as well. There's sort of four
D effects.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Okay, And have you heard much feedback from like audiences?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, So for one, there does seem to be interest
in this. The tickets for this are start at one
hundred and nine dollars and go all the way up
to three hundred and forty nine dollars, so this is
not a cheap normal trip to the movies. This The
company behind it, MSG Entertainment, says they spend about eighty
million dollars modernizing the film. So it's kind of expected
given that, plus this you know, kind of unique venue,
(05:16):
that tickets were going to be a lot pricier than Mankowitz,
who's the host of Turner Classic Movies. He's also the
grandson of Herman Mankowitz, the writer of Citizen Kane. He
in a piece for CBS Sunday Morning, said that this
experience feels like magic. He was a big fan, and
he is, you know, comes from Hollywood royalty, right, So
like that is a guy that you know, you would
want on your side if you're part of the creative
team here. However, others are pushing back on it in
(05:38):
a pretty big way. Slate's review of this called it
an atrocity. Indie Wire said that it is the world's
ugliest oz that's been radically mutilated by AI and on
our air on ABC. Over the weekend, we talked to
Jamel Bowie, who is a columnist for The New York Times,
and he called it an abomination that is an insult
to the very idea of art. His larger idea being
(05:58):
that art, whether it be writing or film or television,
is just as much about what you see as what
you don't see. Right, Framing and cropping and cutting is
part of the artistic process, that's part of the director's vision,
and this is a corruption of that essentially. And again,
the strikes kind of loom over this in a pretty
large way. You can imagine many in the industry are
pushing back on this because of what it represents. Even still,
(06:21):
James Dolan, the guy who owns this sphere, says they've
sold about two hundred thousand tickets to this so far.
So you can imagine that many in Hollywood are going
to be watching this really closely to see if this
is a success or a failure, because it could be
some indicator to the future of the industry.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
All Right, Mike Debuski, ABC News Tech Reporter, thank you
so much, so, of course, Amy tickere
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