The Wonderful Business of Oz
by Lance McDaniel
The Wizard of Oz is currently generating $2 million dollars a day at the Sphere in Las Vegas. The Sphere is a massive, high-tech, immersive venue initially used for concerts. The production, which launched on August 28, has grossed more than $150 million and is predicted to exceed a billion dollars during its initial run.
Sphere Entertainment, led by James Dolan, owner of the New York Knicks and Rangers, paid $100 million to get the rights from Warner Bros. and expand the classic film into the sphere format. The production team used AI along with all the latest special effects technology to expand the picture into four dimensions. The movie’s running time was edited down to 75 minutes, nearly a half hour shorter than the original 102 minutes.
The Wizard of Oz sphere production team was led by Jane Rosenthal, producer of Meet the Parents, About a Boy, RENT, and co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival along with her business partner Robert De Niro. The visual effects team was led by Ben Grossman, visual effects supervisor for Alice in Wonderland, 2012, and The Lion King and winner of the Oscar for Martin Scorsese’s Hugo.
Meanwhile in movie theaters, Wicked: For Good, the second movie sequel to The Wizard of Oz, opened in 4,115 theaters nationwide in November and generated $445 million in its first few weeks. That follows the theatrical run of the original Wicked in 2024, which grossed $758 million worldwide and garnered ten Oscar nominations, winning two for Costume Design and Production Design. The two films, both directed by Jon M. Chu, will pass $1.2 billion at the box office combined.
The Wicked movies are based on the Broadway show, which premiered in 2003, which is based on the book by Gregory Maguire, which came out in 1995. The Broadway show has made more than $1 billion on Broadway and $4 billion worldwide. The book was a moderate hit initially, became a Best Seller after the Broadway show premiered, and is now considered a literary giant. Maguire’s net worth in 2025 is estimated at $70 million.
All told, the books, plays, movies, and immersive experiences based on The Wizard of Oz will generate more than $6 billion dollars in business. All of this from a movie made in 1939.
The Wizard of Oz wasn’t even that popular in 1939. Judy Garland, who was given an honorary juvenile Oscar, and the Oscar winning song “Over the Rainbow,” became instant sensations. But the film did not break even financially until it was re-released a decade later.
Gone with the Wind was the biggest movie of 1939. It won ten academy awards, including Best Picture, and grossed $20 million, ten times the initial gross of The Wizard of Oz. Director Victor Fleming was pulled from the set of The Wizard of Oz to rescue the runaway production of Gone with the Wind. He ultimately directed them both, winning the Oscar for Gone with the Wind.
To be fair, the inspiration for the modern sensation is actually L. Frank Baum, author of the 1900 book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He was the one who came up with Dorothy, the tornado, and the Land of Oz. He invented the munchkins, the Wizard, and the yellow brick road. Through his imagination and gift with words, he created a story that would spawn an industry worth billions of dollars in 2025. That’s a wonderful wizard, indeed.