‘The Wizard of Oz’ Is a Much-Needed Home Run for Sphere

Sphere’s new version of The Wizard of Oz could have a major impact on parent company Sphere Entertainment Co.’s ability to turn a risky bet on a single $2.3 billion venue into a global profit machine.  

The AI-assisted remake of the 1939 classic film, which sold 215,000 tickets by the time of its Sphere debut on Aug. 28, is part of the Las Vegas venue’s Sphere Experience, one aspect of its four-pronged business model that also includes concerts, corporate events and advertising on the venue’s exoskeleton.

Sphere has already cemented its status as a groundbreaking music venue, but becoming a financial success requires squeezing as much content into the venue as possible. So, for example, in the afternoons before bands such as The Eagles or Dead & Company performed, Sphere showed Postcards From Earth, an original, hour-long film by director Darren Aronofsky. With Postcards From Earth having run its course, the venue turned to a remake of a Hollywood classic for its Sphere Experience programming.

Wall Street has been paying close attention — and liking what it sees. Over the last week, numerous analysts have raised their forecasts for Sphere Entertainment Co. based on ticket sales and media attention generated by The Wizard of Oz. On Wednesday (Sept. 10), Guggenheim upped its estimates for Q3 revenue by $5 million to $179 million and increased its price target to $76 from $75. The Wizard of Oz, Guggenheim analysts wrote in a note to investors, is averaging an estimated $600,000 per show compared to $500,000 at the launch of Postcards and the film’s more recent $320,000 per show average. 

Last week, Wolfe Research’s Peter Supino raised his 2025 revenue estimate of Sphere Experience to $359 million from $336 million based on early sales data for The Wizard of Oz and Sphere Entertainment’s Sept. 3 repurchase of $27.5 million of common stock. Supino believes the movie will help send the Sphere segment’s gross profit from an estimated $500 million in 2025 to $600 million in 2026. A gain of that size would put Sphere’s AOI at approximately $200 million, “making the underlying profits of the venue evidently clear and therefore [Sphere’s stock] more investible,” he wrote in a September 4 note to investors.  

Likewise, J.P. Morgan analysts raised their Q3 and long-term forecasts for the Sphere segment based on its observations of Ticketmaster inventory for The Wizard of Oz. Ticket buyers’ enthusiasm, J.P. Morgan analysts wrote in a Sept. 8 note to investors, eliminated doubts that Sphere could find another attraction after the success of Postcards from Earth and V-U2 — a film about U2’s Sphere residency — had “disappointed relative to expectations roughly a year ago.”  

Landing a hit with The Wizard of Oz is a key piece of Sphere’s goal to expand to other markets. The high cost of producing Sphere Experience content — CEO James Dolan said The Wizard of Oz cost up to $100 million to produce — and concerts will eventually be spread out over additional Sphere venues. One such Sphere is coming: In July, Sphere Entertainment Co. secured a franchise agreement with Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism for a Sphere venue in the United Arab Emirates capital which also allows for additional Spheres to be built in the Middle East and North Africa. Wolfe Research’s Supino values venue expansion at $1.4 billion, more than his $1.2 billion valuation for the Las Vegas Sphere.  

But The Wizard of Oz may be so successful that Sphere opts for fewer concerts. Supino lowered his estimate for the number of concerts in 2026 to 96 from 113 on the belief that Sphere would opt to replace lower-margin music events with more profitable showings of Oz.  

Fans can’t get enough of Sphere’s music events, though. Last month, Backstreet Boys added 14 new dates that will extend its residency through February 2026. This week, The Eagles added four dates in January 2026. UNITY, created by concert promoter Insomniac and the Tomorrowland festival, has a nine-date run through October 18. Zac Brown Band begins a six-date residency in December.