Google AI reimagines The Wizard of Oz for the Vegas Sphere

Google has employed artificial intelligence to reimagine the classic film “The Wizard of Oz” for the immersive 360-degree, ultra-high-resolution screen of The Sphere, the iconic entertainment venue in Las Vegas. This revamped version of the beloved movie is set to debut this August at the famously globular LED-clad structure. The project, a blend of technological innovation and potentially unsettling digital artistry, is poised to continue The Sphere’s tradition of extravagant spectacles, enticing tourists to spend substantial amounts for a multi-hour experience within its 17,600-seat capacity.

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Sphere Entertainment, the company operating the venue, collaborated with Google, Magnopus, and Warner Bros. Discovery, the rights holder for “The Wizard of Oz,” on this ambitious undertaking. Google describes the project as an “epic undertaking of creativity and technology,” drawing a parallel to the groundbreaking cinematic achievements of the original Technicolor film. “We’re taking a beloved movie, but we are re-creating it,” stated Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian to The Wall Street Journal, suggesting the only alternative would be to retroactively film it with The Sphere’s advanced camera technology.

Google utilized generative AI models from its Gemini family, notably Veo 2 and Imagen 3, for this project. The task involved not only scaling the original 35mm film for The Sphere’s massive 160,000-square-foot screen, composed of 16,000 LEDs, but also addressing instances where camera cuts removed characters from the frame. For instance, in a Kansas scene featuring Dorothy, Auntie Em, and Miss Gulch, Uncle Henry, who was present but off-camera in the original, will now be visible on the expanded screen.

This was achieved primarily through an AI super-resolution tool, which generated new pixels to fit the higher-resolution display, AI outpainting, which created new parts of scenes extending beyond the original film boundaries, and performance generation, which integrated composites of the actors into these expanded environments.

To refine the AI models, Google expanded the training data beyond the original footage to include supplementary materials such as the shooting script, production illustrations, photographs, set plans, and musical scores. This taught the AI about character and environmental details, as well as production elements like camera focal lengths. The company also consulted with professional filmmakers to guide character actions, expressions, and overall performance. Google asserted that “Now, Dorothy’s freckles snap into focus, and Toto can scamper more seamlessly through more scenes.”

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Interestingly, the companies involved claim that despite AI touching “over 90 percent of the movie,” the reimagining “respects the original in every way.” Google assures that no new dialogue lines or musical scores have been added.

However, a glimpse of the reimagined footage suggests that Dorothy exhibits the overly smooth features often associated with AI-upscaled faces. Ultimately, the reception of this Gemini-infused journey down the yellow brick road, beginning on August 28th, will be determined by the Las Vegas tourists who choose to spend their money on this unique cinematic experience.