AI munchkins insert David Zaslav cameo into Vegas Sphere's Wizard Of Oz
Finally, a use case for AI we can all agree on: Digitally adding the face of a man better known for killing movies than making them into a 1939 classic.
Left: Screenshot, The Wizard Of Oz. Right: David Zaslav, Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for TIME
There’s been much talk, in recent months, about the Las Vegas Sphere, and its plans to suck certified Hollywood Classic The Wizard Of Oz into its orbtacular maw. Much of this conversation has, understandably, centered on artificial intelligence, which Sphere Entertainment Company is using in abundance to jam the film into its skyline-filling crystal ball, upscaling the movie’s resolution, and filling out its frame to fit the giant orb’s oddball proportions. (Director Victor Fleming, forward-looking in many ways, apparently never thought to worry how his 1939 film might fit onto giant, globular public eyesores nearly a century down the line, so there’s a lot of space to fill.) But while the debates about artistic intent, the difference between “preservation” and “alteration,” and the sheer money-soaked pointlessness of this whole endeavor will continue to rage for the foreseeable future, hopefully there’s at least one thing that both we, and the cinematic dead, would be able to agree on about The Wizard Of Oz: David Zaslav’s big dumb face should be artificially inserted into it somewhere.
