Disney-MGM Studios

History

the park borrows many architectural references to buildings of Los Angeles. Some still exist, others were destroyed. For a description of the park under its architectural aspect it is on this page.

The concept

The initial idea, apart from the first ideas concerning Disneyland, emerges during the development of EPCOT. A house on the cinema and its techniques is proposed for Future World near Imagination!. In parallel Ward Kimball works on the project of a baptized attraction Mickey' S Movieland presenting the history and the first short films of Mickey Mouse. Michael Eisner in 1985 authorizes to extend these concepts to a whole park and not a house or a single attraction.

Disney is not the first to make visit movie studios. The idea comes from Carl Laemmle founder of Universal Pictures which makes visit as of 1915 its studios for 25 hundreds. But it is in 1964, in reaction to the success of Disneyland, that Universal develops a true elaborate circuit of visit of the studios. Then during the Années 1970 with 1980 the Universal studios of Hollywood are transformed gradually into an amusement park close to operational movie studios.

The June 25th 1985, Disney and MGM, held by Kirk Kerkorian, sign a twenty year old contract authorizing Disney to use the name and the logo of the MGM for an amusement park in Florida. The July 8th, the project is announced by Michael Eisner in Florida.

The essential idea of the park consists in the reconstitution of Hollywood more mythical than real and whose image is in all the spirits. Thus the majority of the buildings are counterparts of principal architectural works of the Los Angeles of the Années 1920 with 1950.

The concept includes/understands also a studio of Disney production with animations and the catches of real sights (even if it were used little), a visit in the slides and the technical zones of the known as studio, the attractions based on films and finally of the shops and restaurants. The park could thus be divided into two parts: production and attractions.

Work begins in 1986. The opening initially planned for October 1988, is pushed back with May 1989. The labor costs are estimated at more than 500 million $.

The name Disney-MGM

The park forever be the property of MGM. In fact, Disney had signed a contract with the MGM to use the name as well as the contents of films to carry out attractions: for example, attraction The Great Movie Wrinkles. The exact future of the name of the park seemed dubious: the contract allowing the use of name MGM expired at the end of the summer 2005 whereas MGM was repurchased by Sony Pictures the April 8th 2005 and that many objects and other memories then referred to the park like Disney Studios or Walt Disney Studios .

Another problem with the name appeared in 1992 when Subway-Goldwyn-Mayer continued for violation of contract, Walt Disney Company which used since 1985 the park as studio of productions of films and televised series. Disney retorted by another continuation against MGM which had authorized the use of its name for MGM Grand Hotel, the MGM Casino and MGM Airlines. That would have taken part in the violation of the rights conceded at Disney for the exclusive use of the name of the park to topic of Florida. Moreover that the reputation of Disney of share construction within the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas (Nevada) would have harmed, of a park with thème.
The October 23rd 1992, Curtis judge Grates Supreme court of the United States, judged in discredit of MGM and declared that park MGM Grand Park Topic with Las Vegas, then in construction, could use the name of MGM as long as MGM Grand did not comprise a topic on “Hollywood”. However the park of Las Vegas closed after the summer 2000, for lack of profitability. The zone remains open for private events, in waiting to be replaced by a news tower for the hotel.

With dimensions one of Disney, since 2005, all the references to MGM in Florida were removed gradually. There remained only the greatest references like the official name to the entry and that of the park. However, a similar renaming including/understanding an association because Disney has other movie studios, although less mythical, and only one attraction using the contents of the MGM, the park is not really likely to close.

From the January 1st, 2008, the park will be famous Disney' S Hollywood Studios because of the stop of the contract between Disney and MGM. The renaming was officialized on August 10th, 2007 by Meg Crofton, president de Walt Disney World Resort. The Disney company moreover informs, in a humorous way, that with this name of park one knows finally " second prénom" Disney studios, " Hollywood". This name would have been finally selected to stress that the park evokes mythical and timeless Hollywood.

Dedication

" The world you cuts entered was created by the Walt Disney Company is dedicated to Hollywood - not has place one has map, goal has state off mind that exists wherever people dream and wonder and imagines, has place where illusion and reality are fused by technological magic. We welcome you to has Hollywood that never was - and always will be." - Michael Eisner, May 1,1989

the world which you entered, was created by Walt Disney Company and was dedicated to Hollywood - not a place on a chart, but a frame of mind which exists everywhere where people dream, are filled with wonder and imagined, a place where the illusion and reality are mixed by the magic of technology. We accommodate you in Hollywood which existed forever - but which will be always présent." - Michael Eisner, May 1st, 1989

The park with topic

The park adopts an outline of the radial plane typical of Disney but truncated by the fact of wanting to dissociate by a wall the public part, production part of the park. The park opened with only one ten attractions. But it quickly became a park with whole share with attractions with feelings much stronger than the Magic Kingdom allows it. Main Street was transformed into Hollywood Boulevard and the castle replaced by the Mann' S Chinese Theater unfortunately blocked in 2001 by the enormous hat of the sorcerer's apprentice Mickey in Fantasia.

It is possible to divide the park into seven " pays" , five for attractions and two for the production:

Hollywood Boulevard
Echo Lake and Commissary Lane
Backlot
Big Cities Streets
Sunset Boulevard
Animation Courtyard
Mickey Avenue

Hollywood Blvd.

It is the Main Street the USA park, a street bordered of shops and restaurants giving access the remainder of the park.

After having passed the main doors, the visitor finds on a place called Crossroads off the World which is used as Town Square with the reception of the park and other services. On a side the shop Sid Cahuenga is: One off has kind name of a collar of mountain and a street in the center of Hollywood and other the service station of Oscar' S Super Service .

The department store located him also in the first building of left is called off Mickey' S Hollywood . Other side, a shop of photography followed by other shops on various topics, widen the purchasing possibilities with memories and other objects on the architectural and cinematographic past of Hollywood. The street in itself does not include/understand any restaurant. To be restored it is necessary either to reach the principal place, or to take on the left after Mickey' S off Hollywood and to choose one of the restaurants around Echo Lake.

At the end of the street, a central place is decorated of a hat of Mickey and behind, the Mann' S Chinese Theater . The cinema is used as entry with the attraction based on films of the MGM, The Great Movie Wrinkles . The hat is a mark of the 100e birthday of the birth of Walt Disney, an exposure commemorative being presented in the Walt Disney Theater of Mickey Avenue. In front of the theater is reproduced celebrates it Walk off Famed .

The central place reproduces a head of Mickey: two green areas on both sides of Hollywood Blvd. for the eyes, central space for the nose, the mouth smiling to the level of Chinese Theater and for the ears less visible that of right-hand side the lake of Lake Echo and that of left painted on the roof of the restaurants with the entry of the Animation Courtyard. The hat of Mickey removes the effect since 2001, but it will be perhaps withdrawn a day.

On the right of the central place, a porch marks the entry of the production part with the Animation Courtyard and the Mickey Avenue. Just at side the Hollywood Brown Derby is a very smart restaurant.

Until the May 2nd 1993 a theater, retorts Hollywood Bowl, was located between the Brown Derby and Hollywood Boulevard. Called Theater off Stars it accommodated the spectacle of the Beautiful one and the Animal. It was destroyed to bore the street Sunset Boulevard and the theater was reopened further in this new street, with identical but with a larger esplanade.

Echo Lake and Commissary Lane

Echo Lake is an ovoid water surface, around which attractions and restaurants are laid out. The zone extends a little further that the lake itself and includes a small street perpendicular to Hollywood Blvd which gives access Big Cities Street .

On the lake a dinosaur, inspired of the film Gertie, accommodates a snack bar while on other bank a boat makes in the same way. On a side of the lake, near to Hollywood Blvd, two restaurants and a snack bar offer to the visitors a place of relaxation. The Hollywood & Vine proposes a cafeteria with many memories of the past. At side, the 50 ' S precedes Time Cafe evokes the interior of the houses of the Années 1950 with its shaped and chrome design.

On opposite bank of the lake, a building made up of hangars accommodates attractions:

In the hangar more close to the central place, an initially sponsored attraction by Sony, consisted of the recording as a public of certain televised series. It changed into 1998 with the profit of series for children diffused on ABC and Disney Channel such as Doug (July 1998 in July 1999) or Bear in the Big Blue House (July 4th, 1999 at August 4th, 2001). It is closed since 2001.
In the hangar more in the south, with an antenna of radio, attraction Sounds Dangerous
a small house was used as studios with the Radio Disney. And between the two hangars a small park pays homage to the large artists of Disney.

Other side of this building is the Commissary Lane with two restaurants. The ABC Commissary is a large cafeteria style art déco while the Sci-Fi Diner reproduces a cinema drive-in and makes it possible to eat in car-tables in a permanently evening clearness.

An enormous covered amphitheater, of 2.000 places accommodates, since September 1989, a spectacle of cascades on Indiana Jones: Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!, with a shop just on the left near the restaurants, towards Hollywood Blvd. The spectacle was designed by Glenn Randall, coordinator of the cascades on the first two films Indiana Jones and Poltergeist.

Backlot

This part sometimes called the Appendix Backlot , was added as from the winter 1989 beside attraction of Indiana Jones, with a restaurant and several attractions. It included/understood also the New York St but because of the enlarging, this street became a " land" with whole share of the park.

At side, a hangar accommodates a restaurant in a false factory, the Backstage Backlot , elements of decoration are scattered in the room.

Just at the entry of Big Cities Street, one finds an attraction headlight of the park and Disney, Star Turns. The outside of attraction is a rebuilding of the forest of Ewok on the forest Moon of Endor, with a transport TB-TT ( AT-AT ) and a X-Wing. Since 2001, the shop behind was transformed into houses of Tatooine. With the difference of the attraction of California, it includes/understands six StarSpeeder 3000.

Every year several weekends of at the end of May at the beginning of June are reserved for the films Star Wars . Thus the parade counts imperial Stormtrooper S, guards (in red) and Jedi. Even Mickey in Padawan côtoie the characters resulting from films and the courses of laser handling of saber are organized.

Big Cities St

In the past New York St , the zone was increased and its wide concept with the suppression of the Residential Street in order to build attraction Motors, Action!. Several streets are bordered of frontages simulating a street of an American big city. In the beginning alone New York was represented but since Chicago and San Francisco have also established among.

The street makes it possible to hide attractions. Oldest is that derived from the film Chérie, I narrowed the kids opened the December 17th 1990. Behind the frontage of second block of houses on the right, the garden of the Szalinski family is reconstituted but they are the visitors who were narrowed. One can find the ant or abandoned cereals of film. Same attraction exists with Walt Disney World Resort in the house Imagination with EPCOT.

Behind first block of houses on the left, in an old hangar with a balloon above the building, one finds attraction Muppet' S open Vision 3D the May 16th 1991. On the place one can see a fountain where Miss Piggy throne in a costume of the Statue of Freedom. It is a cinema in relief where one finds all the characters of the Muppets imagined by Jim Henson including the two grandpas of the series (in audio-animatronic) who make their comments since a balcony.

Between the place of Miss Piggy and the shop of Tatooine, a street starts which circumvents attraction Muppet' S Vision 3D. Just at the entry, a hangar lodged the Studio Showcase , old warehouse of decoration which was transformed into restaurant-pizzeria of Buzz the Flash in 1995. A room of arcade had even been built at side but it closed in 2000.

Then, after the hangar of the Muppets, the buildings resemble the streets of the Italian district of New York. The sector contains two pizzerias: the Toy Story Pizza pie Planet and the pizzeria of " Mama Melrose" Mama Melrose' S Ristorante Italiano one of the best restaurants of the park.

While continuing this small street, one arrives on old the Backlot Theater , added at the end of the year 1995 to accommodate the spectacle of the Bossu of Notre-Dame. Between June 1997 and 1998, the spectacle was devoted to Hercules then again with the Bossu of Notre-Dame until in 2004, start date of the building work of Motors, Action!. Since an enormous panel the theater masks by simulating the escarpées streets of San Francisco.

The place at the end of the New York Street, near Backlot Theater, and the Residential Street accommodated since 1995 the Christmas decorations of the Osborne family. The street was destroyed in 2002 and in work until in 2005 places it. Since 2004 a compromise was found and resplendit of lights as well as the streets of Big Cities Street places it.

This work was due to the construction of a new amphitheater for the spectacle Motors, Action! of automobile cascade. It is a copy of the attraction of the Walt Disney Studios in France. It was conceived by Rémy Julienne, celebrates it stuntman and director of cascade of several James Bond.

this street is called off from now on Street America

Sunset Blvd.

This street was added in 1994 in order to increase the park. It is especially with attraction Tower off Terror that one owes this long street where throne literally the tower of this dilapidated and haunted hotel high of 66 Mr.

The street is made up mainly of counterparts of cinemas of Hollywood lodging of the shops or the restaurants. The Hollywood Brown Derby thus has an additional terrace along the street (in addition to the central place). The shops are located in blocks of houses of right-hand side except one. Then on the left an esplanade accommodates a market of outdoor, they are restaurants. On the other side of the street, the Theater off Stars accommodates since the opening (with share during the removal of 1993-1994) the spectacle of the Beautiful one and the Animal.

In 1999 with the foot of the Tour of Terror a small street brings to attraction Rock “Roller Coaster. You go up aboard limousine of Aerosmith which must go urgently to a concert, the music is thoroughly… but it is a Russian mountain with lopping and inversion.

The Tower of Terror, The Twilight Zone Tower off Terror of its true name, is a revolutionary attraction. Opened the July 22nd 1994, it is inspired by the series the the Fourth dimension ( Twilight Zone in English).
The topic: a hotel of the Années 1930 was struck by the lightning, the evening of Halloween 1939. A whole wing of the building was destroyed and the five passengers of an elevator disparurent.
The visitors can enter the building and go up to the 13° stage where place had the evening, by an elevator of service. But that Ci does not indicate this thirteenth stage and on the contrary involve them in an impressive fall.

Between the entry of the Theater off Stars and Tower of Terror, a long way makes it possible to join an enormous amphitheater called Hollywood Hills Amphitheater . Composed of steps in arc of circle which can accommodate 8.000 people around a lake from where an island (the whole artificial) emerges. It accommodates the spectacle Fantasmic! as well as concerts.

Courtyard animation

It is the entry of the production part of the park. It is necessary to pass under a porch to reach it.

An immense building lodged the studios of Walt Disney Pictures in Florida and attraction The Magic off Disney Animation. The studios closed in 2003. Attraction was completely re-examined and only a small exposure accommodates the visitors in the entry of the building.

A sculpture with of Mickeys climbing a film left a reel marks the place. Behind, near the porch a theater accommodates spectacles for young people according to the Disney topicality.

On the other side of the place, another theater off accommodates since the January 7th 1992 the spectacle Voyage the Little Mermaid on the Small Siren. Before it was a spectacle on Muppets, heading Here Like the Muppets , but which was removed with the opening of attraction in Big Cities Street.

Between the theater of the Small Siren and the old studios was the entry of attraction Studio Backlot Tour, now it is located at the end of the Mickey Avenue.

Mickey Ave.

This street skirts the immense building of attraction The Great Movie Wrinkles. Opposite the studios of recording attractions or turnings lodge according to the topicality of the moment. To walk there, it is necessary to skirt the room of the spectacle on the Small Siren, Voyage off the Little Mermaid . But at the end of the street it is possible to join the New York Street.

To the entry on the right the Walt Disney Theater presents an exposure commemorative on the history of Walt Disney entitled " One Man' S Dream " (the dream of a man).

Then three studios of recording (soundstage) accommodate attractions or decorations of films. One could see those of the films the Wings of the hell ( Con Air ), the 101 Dalmatiens or Pirates of the Caribbean. The last accommodated even the attraction of Which wants to gain million (American version of course).

At the end of the street, a building acts as entry for attraction on the visit of the studios, Studio Backlot Tour. After having seen the watery and sound special effects as well as the technique of the blue screen, the visitors embark for a voyage on board trams in the " coulisses" park. One can see the building of the costumes, the workshops, of the decorations, a garage for the vehicles of all types. Since 2005 one can see the back of the spectacle of automobile cascades of Motors, Actions!. At the end of the visit, a stop in the Catastrophe Canyon makes it possible to be found in the middle of a hydraulic rupture of stopping with a gasoline truck which takes fire.

Currently in work to set up Toy Story handled, this street is, until spring, a bottom of bag and does not serve any more Studio Backlot Tour nor Motors, Actions!

Productions of the park

Animation

The park accommodated as of its opening the studios Walt Disney Animation Florida of Walt Disney Pictures which were closed in 2002. It was the first of the studios " satellites" of Disney, majority open in the years 1990 and closed in the years 2000.

In the beginning, these studios were open in order to start again the production of courts and medium-length films of which some having for héro Mickey Mouse. But with success in 1989 of the Small Siren , the studio was used for sequences of films then in production the Beautiful one and the Animal (1991) and the King Lion (1994).

These studios, most important of Disney apart from California, occupied an important building of which the entry with dimensions park was used as attraction.

Turnings

The park was also the place of turning of certain films or episodes of televised series.

The emission All New Mickey Mouse Club was recorded in front of a public. It is this emission inspired of the The Mickey Mouse Club of the years 1950 which popularized Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera.

Series of Golden delicious Girl (Cracking Them) and Home Improvment (" Bricole" dad;) were turned partly here. Thumber/the Caribbean Offshore was it completely and used the decorations of the Seven Seas Lagoon and EPCOT.

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