Days after Jim Dolan won a long sought-after chip with his New York Knicks, the billionaire mogul is ready to roll the dice on a major movie bet at his unique orb-shaped venue, The Sphere.
The next movie in the works for a reimagining at the 17,600-seat venue is an experiential take on Jim Sharman’s 1975 cult feature The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which has become a staple of community screenings and has been adapted multiple times for Broadway. At the Sphere, Rocky Horror will unspool sometime in 2027.
While its Wizard of Oz experience had a price tag of around $100 million to bring the adaptation of the 1939 Judy Garland feature to the Vegas masses — including recreating a tornado inside the venue — it’s unclear if Rocky Horror will carry a similar budget. A Sphere rep declined comment on the adaptation’s price tag. The project is being put together in a deal with Primary Wave Music and 20th Century Studios.
“Through Sphere Studios, we are building a slate of original experiences that push the boundaries of technology and storytelling for this new medium, while always keeping the audience at the center of the experience,” Dolan stated in unveiling the project. “Since The Rocky Horror Picture Show premiered in 1975, it redefined audience participation and became a cultural phenomenon. With Sphere, we have the opportunity to take that spirit of immersion to an entirely new level.”
Oz, which bowed on August 28 of last year, has now reeled in $400 million in sales and sold 3 million tickets since its premiere. That’s an additional $30 million in sales since the company disclosed its earnings on May 5.
If Oz was a test case in the viability of adapting classic movie IP for an experiential venue, it appears to have passed with flying colors financially. That title included Hollywood-grade work from the likes of producer Jane Rosenthal, VFX expert Ben Grossmann and Oppenheimer editor Jennifer Lame. The creative team for Rocky Horror has yet to be revealed.
For those comparing the $400 million Oz sales figure with blockbuster theatrical movies, the back-of-the-napkin math works out to about $133 a ticket, far more than the, say, $12-$15 a ticket for a typical film. Notably, only one film, Universal and Illumination’s The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, has grossed more than $400 million domestically so far this year.
And Oz won’t be going anywhere, if anything it may be more firmly ensconced in the Sphere’s Vegas portfolio. “I think the biggest learning is that we can do multiple shows, even different shows, concert and features like Wizard of Oz all in the same day that the building can handle it, that the market can handle it,” Dolan told analysts in May.
The Sphere, a longtime vision for the mogul (who fronts his own band JD and the Straight Shot), had launched with concert experiences from the likes of U2, the Eagles, Dead & Company, Backstreet Boys and Metallica. Phish, No Doubt, Kenney Chesney are among the names packing the venue this year.
On deck, the Sphere’s studio is developing extreme sports film From The Edge, co-directed by Free Solo helmers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, as an original feature with a to-be-determined premiere date.
Dolan has plans to bring the Sphere concept to other major cities (“We’d like to move as quickly as we can to building multiple Spheres,” he has said). Early this year the company signed a deal to develop a smaller Sphere in the Washington, D.C., metro area.
Asked about other potential adaptations and its talks with studio rightsholders about IP adaptations, Dolan replied in its May call with analysts, “The leverage is that we’re the only venue that does this. So it’s not like somebody else can take that product and go put it into a big immersive environment like a Sphere. So it’s really up to us which ones we choose.”

It’s everyone’s worst nightmare: food poisoning . . . on a plane!
1980s heartthrob Corey Feldman had a medical emergency during a flight from Chicago to Los Angeles on Monday and was met by paramedics at the gate who rushed him to the hospital.
After spending the night there and getting numerous tests to see if the tummy turbulence was pancreatitis or gallstones, his rep tells us it was just a good old-fashioned case of food poisoning.
It is unclear if the “Goonies” star was a victim of airport dining.
“Corey is doing much better and is now out of the hospital,” the rep tells us.
A source close to Feldman told TMZ the ’80s teen star was feeling sick on the flight and was checked out by a doctor who happened to be a fellow passenger.
“Corey wants to thank everyone for all of the love and well wishes,” his rep told us. “He has definitely seen a lot of the messages and really appreciates everything.”
Feldman is releasing a new single called “What Am I Here 4” on June 22 and is celebrating his birthday with two performances in California the weekend of July 25.
Feldman was in Chicago to attend an anniversary celebration for the 1986 classic “Stand By Me,” along with co-stars Jerry O’Connell and Wil Wheaton.
Late Sunday night, Feldman shared a carousel of photos and videos to Instagram of him driving to Chicago for the event. He stopped by Michael Jackson’s childhood home in Gary, Indiana, for an impromptu visit to “pay respects” to the late singer.
Jackson died at the age of 50 after suffering a heart attack caused by a drug overdose on June 25, 2009.
“We’re on our way to Chicago to tear it up,” Feldman, who competed on “Dancing With the Stars” last fall, said in a video on social media. “Gonna be a great night. Lots of people coming — thousands.”

A month ago, Stephen Colbert snuck in one final gag against CBS during the final episode of The Late Show, airing an unlicensed Peanuts song as he joked that “I hope this doesn’t cost CBS any money!”
A month later, CBS is now paying up, as the network signed a licensing agreement with Lee Mendelson Film Productions over the track’s use, with all the unspecified proceeds going to World Central Kitchen.
“LMFP found the music’s use on The Late Show funny and entertaining, and is proud to support World Central Kitchen’s mission,” Jason Mendelson, Chairman of LMFP, said in a statement on Tuesday. “A principal goal of our enforcement actions is to educate individuals, businesses, and government entities about the need to obtain written license agreements to use music in a commercial setting.”
CBS didn’t immediately respond to request for comment.
Mendelson’s donation stays in line with Colbert, who had donated $2.5 million to World Central Kitchen as well before the show ended.
Colbert told the now-costly joke during his final Late Show episode in May during his “Meanwhile” segment, noting how Mendelson had launched several legal actions earlier that week over the unauthorized use of composer Vince Guaraldi’s iconic jazz score.
“Peanuts is a powerful brand and corporation in and of itself, anyone illegally using that music is going to have to play through the nose,” Colbert said as Louis Cato and his band immediately began performing Peanuts theme “Linus and Lucy.” “Louis, is the band right now playing the same Peanuts music I just said people are being sued for using without permission? Oh no, I hope this doesn’t cost CBS any money.”
While Colbert’s show ended, he didn’t stay off the airwaves for long, going on public access television 24 hours later in Michigan, bringing out the likes of Jack White and Jeff Daniels.

Portlanders took some of the culinary world’s highest honors Monday night at the 36th annual James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards in Chicago.
Nodoguro’s Ryan Roadhouse won Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific, a category he was first nominated for in 2015, shortly after the pop-up-turned-restaurant started. Roadhouse is no stranger to the James Beard Awards garnering a staggering nine semifinalist nominations in the category over the last decade.
Roadhouse started his acceptance speech recounting his first restaurant job working as a bus boy at 17 and ended by thanking the mentors “that came before” including Vitaly Paley and Toshi Kizaki saying, “This medal belongs to you — without you, I would be nowhere [near where] I am today.”
Roadhouse was one of two Portland chefs, along with Thomas Pisha-Duffly of Gado Gado, who made it as a finalist in this year’s category which includes chefs in Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii.
Portland’s “cocktail bar for whiskey lovers,” Scotch Lodge, also brought home a win for Outstanding Bar, a category that has nominees from around the country.
Scotch Lodge founder Tommy Klaus spent more than two decades at the forefront of Portland’s cocktail scene, behind the bar at iconic spots like Bluehour and St. Jack, before creating beverage programs at Kask, La Moule, and the Multnomah Whiskey Library. He opened Scotch Lodge in 2019 and this is the second year in a row the bar has been nominated.

LOS ANGELES — “Stand by Me” actor Corey Feldman has been hospitalized after experiencing a medical emergency on a cross-country flight to Los Angeles.
The 54-year-old former child star was met by paramedics after landing at Los Angeles International Airport on June 15, his publicist confirmed to USA TODAY on Monday night. He was admitted to a hospital and is “resting” overnight while awaiting MRI results.
USA TODAY reached out to the Los Angeles Fire Department for more information. TMZ was first to report the news.
Before his hospitalization, the “Goonies” actor posted photos from his Midwest travels on June 15. The prior day, he’d appeared at the “Stand by Me” 40th anniversary tour stop at The Chicago Theatre alongside Jerry O’Connell and Wil Wheaton.
“We have this instant connection and it’s there. The camaraderie is there; the jokes are there. We have so much fun,” Feldman told People magazine in an interview published in March.
“But there’s this looming thing hanging over us,” he added, referring to late costar River Phoenix and director Rob Reiner, who was killed alongside his wife, Michele Reiner, in their home in December.
“The movie is called ‘Stand By Me,’ and there’s four of us,” Feldman said. “We can’t stand by River, because he’s not here. Now with Rob missing too — I’m sorry, I’m going to get a little emotional — but I was so hoping that he would be able to join us for this.”