Immersive Wizard of Oz Grossing $2M a Day

Movie theaters looking to draw back viewers should take a lesson from the $2.3 billion Las Vegas Sphere, expected to pull in hundreds of millions of dollars in the next year simply by showing the same 70-minute film over and over. The immersive version of The Wizard of Oz is drawing between 4,000 and 5,000 guests per showing—and there are two to three per day. Guests pay an average of $200 each, meaning daily ticket sales of up to $2 million, Bloomberg reports. Officials expect the film to bring in $1 billion before it ends its run at the Sphere, home to the world's highest resolution LED screen.

Billionaire James Dolan, CEO of Sphere Entertainment Co., licensed the rights to The Wizard of Oz from Warner Bros. Discovery, run by his old friend David Zaslav. Dolan then spent $100 million adapting the film into a 70-minute version that feels like a thrill ride. Los Angeles Times film critic Amy Nicholson notes that when the tornado struck in the movie, powerful fans "blew my bangs straight off my forehead." She also describes being "pelted with scented foam apples and dive-bombed by half a dozen drone-piloted flying monkeys." A documentary about stuntpeople, From the Edge, will debut next year. Dolan has also been approached about adapting Harry Potter and Star Wars, per the Consequence of Sound.