Cosm Domes seek to make 'Harry Potter' universe immersive - butterbeer and all

Transforming family movie nights into enveloping spectacles and offering viewers a ringside seat for sports, U.S.-based Cosm Domes want to give their customers a new kind of immersive entertainment: a towering LED dome.

"It feels real. And that's something you can't get at home," Jay Rinsky, founder and CEO of Little Cinema, the creative studio behind what Cosm calls its "shared reality experiences," told Reuters.

Cosm has so far opened Domes in Los Angeles and Dallas, with further venues planned for Atlanta, Detroit and Cleveland.

Screenings are paired with themed food and drinks and photo opportunities, and fans are encouraged to dress as their favorite characters.

For instance, when watching the shared reality version of the film "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," created in partnership with Warner Bros, the audience can also drink a butterbeer, a non-alcoholic fizzy beverage with a butterscotch flavor that's a favorite of Hogwarts students.

"We know that fans of Harry Potter know this movie inside and out and is a beloved franchise, so we like to get to know them. What are they looking for? What are those authentic moments? And then how can we surprise and delight them?" said Alexis Scalice, Cosm's vice president of business development and entertainment.

Little Cinema and Warner Bros Pictures launched their multi-film collaboration in 2025 with immersive screenings of "The Matrix," followed by "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory."

The screening of the first "Harry Potter" marks the 25th anniversary of the film that first brought the J.K. Rowling books about the boy wizard to the silver screen.

Cosm's technology seeks to create the next generation of experience, with visuals that make audiences feel as though they're flying through Hogwarts or playing Quidditch on broomsticks.

Rinsky said the process was complex and years in the making. The biggest challenge, he said, was adapting a traditional rectangular film frame to fit a dome, a creative leap that helped define what cinema could be.

"It's the Easter eggs and the moving mirroring elements that you see in the film that all of a sudden pop to life in or in the environment around you," Rinsky said.

-Jack Ferry, Matt McKnight, Danielle Broadway/Reuters