is a
Theme Park in the
Walt Disney World Resort ,
Florida ,
USA . It opened on
May 1 ,
1989 . 135 acres (546,000 m²) in size, the park's theme is Hollywood classic movies and popular TV entertainment.
The only affiliation that
MGM has to the
Disney park is via contracts—contracts that allow Disney to use the MGM name and lion logo in marketing, and separate contracts that allow for specific MGM content to be used in a ride called
The Great Movie Ride .
''"The World you have entered was created by The Walt Disney Company and is dedicated to Hollywood—not a place on a map, but a state of mind that exists wherever people dream and wonder and imagine, a place where illusion and reality are fused by technological magic. We welcome you to a Hollywood that never was—and always will be."''—
Michael Eisner , May 1, 1989
parade near the Sorcerer's Apprentice hat during
Star Wars Weekends.]]
The park consists of five themed areas. Major attractions are listed below.
Hollywood Blvd. is lined with shops selling Disney merchandise and food. This is also the location of the "Disney Stars and Motor Cars Parade." Michael Eisner, who had a major part in the park's creation ever since the earliest development, demanded the opening land operate on the same principle as
Main Street, U.S.A. —a street lined with shops and food, but in a style more fitting to the Studios.
- The Disney-MGM Studios Backlot Tour, showing how movie special effects are done. Guests see a movie scene filmed using volunteers from the audience and various special effects. Guest board trams and are taken through ''Catastrophe Canyon'', to see fire and water effects, are driven past large-scale movie props, and are shown residential streets made up of facades.
- Who Wants To Be A Millionaire - Play It! , a theme park version of the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? game show with real prizes for contestants. The current grand prize is a three-night cruise on Disney Cruise Line .
- Walt Disney: One Man's Dream, a museum-like walkthrough attraction that explores the life of Walt Disney and his legacy through photos, models, rare artifacts and a short biographical film narrated by Disney himself
- Journey Into Narnia: Creating the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, a walk-through interactive attraction featurings props from the movie and an appearance from the White Witch .
- Meet the Power Rangers from five generations: Wild Force, Ninja Storm, Dino Thunder, S.P.D. and the newest series Mystic Force. Appearances throughout the day.
- Voyage of The Little Mermaid, a live performance using puppets, lasers, movies, human actors, and water (mist). The show recreates the animated Little Mermaid movie, in an abbreviated form.
- The Magic of Disney Animation, a short presentation showing how animated films are made.
- Playhouse Disney—Live on Stage!, a live performance featuring Disney children's television characters
The idea which led to the Disney-MGM Studios began at its sister park,
Epcot . A team of Imagineers led by
Marty Sklar and
Randy Bright had been given an assignment to create two new pavilions for the park's Future World section. The fruits of the brainstorming sessions were the Wonders of Life pavilion (which closed in 2005), and the Great Movie Ride pavilion. The second of the two was to have sat between the Land pavilion and the Journey Into Imagination pavilion, and was to look like a soundstage backdrop, with a movie theatre-style entrance in the middle. The actual attraction is very similar to the plans for the equivalent at Epcot, only, when newly-appointed CEO
Michael Eisner saw the plans for the pavilion, he requested that, instead of placing the ride in an already existing park, it should be surrounded by a brand new theme park which extended the showbiz, Hollywood and entertainment theme.
The Walt Disney Company's original concept of the Disney-MGM Studios was not only to operate it as a theme park but also as a full fledged television and motion picture production facility. The studio/production part would house two major television and motion picture production facilities,
Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida , where a number of Disney animated projects, including ''
Mulan '', ''
Lilo & Stitch '', ''
Brother Bear '', and sequences from the other
1990s -early
2000s Disney animated features were produced, and the Walt Disney Studios Florida which consisted of several soundstages which were used for various Disney projects including
The Disney Channel 's
All New Mickey Mouse Club ,
Adventures In Wonderland , and several third party productions including tapings for
World Championship Wrestling and the TV series ''
SeaQuest DSV ''. Even
Let's Make A Deal was taped here for the 1990-91 season. At the end of "MMC" and "Adventures in Wonderland", the lit Disney-MGM water tower appeared on the screen and one of the cast said, "(insert show title here) was taped at the Disney-MGM Studios at the Walt Disney Resort in Orlando, Florida."
A radio studio is also located on the lot which original housed the first children's radio network
Radio Aahs which rented the studio until Disney founded
Radio Disney and essentially forced Radio Aahs out of business. Unfortunately Disney management including CEO
Michael Eisner decided to downsize Disney's Florida operations by closing the animation studio, laying-off personnel and then moving the operations to the main animation studio in
Burbank, California . Radio Disney decided it was no longer profitable to operate in Florida so they moved all of their shows from the Disney-MGM Studios to the Radio Disney headquarters in
Dallas, Texas and the once bustling Disney Studios Florida soundstages now sit vacant and unused.
In
1992 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer filed a lawsuit against The Walt Disney Company claiming they violated a
1985 licensing agreement by operating a working movie and television studio at the Disney-MGM Studio in Florida and Disney filed a countersuit saying that MGM Studios, the MGM Grand Hotel, Casino and Park and MGM Airlines had conspired to violate Disney's right to exclusive use of the name MGM at the Florida theme park and that it would harm Disney's reputation by building the MGM Grand Hotel and Theme Park in
Las Vegas, Nevada . On
October 23 Superior Court Judge Curtis Rappe ruled against MGM and said that both the Disney-MGM Studios in Florida and the then under construction MGM Grand Theme Park in Las Vegas could use the MGM name as long as the MGM Grand does not carry a 'Hollywood' theme like the Disney-MGM Studios. MGM Grand has since dismantled their Las Vegas theme park and is using the land for hotel expansion.
The following section is temporary as, although relevant at present, it will cease to be relevant when the subject of the section has commenced.
The future of the park's name is uncertain, as the contract allowing the usage of the "MGM" name is said to expire in Summer 2005. With MGM being sold to a group led by
Sony as of
April 8 ,
2005 , it is not expected that that this group will renew the park name contract. A sign of this pending transition is that many merchandise and other material already refer to the park as . It was expected the Disney-MGM Studios would become the Walt Disney Studios on January 1, 2006. However, no such renaming happened that day.
Signage around the park proclaiming it as the Disney-MGM Studios has either been quieted down, or removed altogether. MGM has never allowed Disney to use the name in publicity material, but many signs around the park are already heralding the park as the Walt Disney Studios. The MGM archway, featuring Mickey Mouse and the park logo, over the entrance to Mickey Avenue had signage removed in during October, suggesting to many that change was very imminent, but it has since been restored. There is a
Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris, and rumours of a Walt Disney Studios park to open in the
Hong Kong Disneyland Resort within the next decade. Indeed, promotional materials sent out in November 2005 announce the park by this new name.
- Each year, ''Star Wars Weekends'' bring Star Wars fans and celebrities for special park events. Star Wars Weekends are generally held for five consecutive weekends (including Fridays) through late May and early June; they feature a local Star Wars fan club parading through the park in Stormtrooper costumes, a "Star Wars Edition" of the "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire: Play It!" game where the game begins with Greedo answering questions and a Gamorrean Guard in the audience cheering him on, two Star Wars actors appearing each weekend for photos and autographs, Jedi Lightsaber Training classes for kids, and other assorted events.
- Every Holiday Season , Disney-MGM Studios features the "Osborne Family Spectacle of Lights", with five million Christmas Lights on more than 350 miles of wire.
- According to Internet urban legends, while Michael Eisner was working for Paramount Pictures , he saw the early plans for the Universal Studios park in Florida (Paramount has always been closely associated with Universal, and Paramount provided much needed finance into the Universal Orlando Resort). After moving to Disney, he took some of these ideas and used them in early plans for the future Disney-MGM Studios. As Disney-MGM narrowly opened before Universal (as mentioned above the park and its resort had finance problems), it was seen that Universal copied Disney-MGM—or was it the other way around? Some reports say that, in a coincidence, both Universal and Disney planned studio/theme parks at the same time without knowing of the other company's ideas in the beginning and both rushed to finish their respective parks when they heard the news.
- ''The Magic of Disney Animation'' attraction originally allowed spectators to watch Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida artists at work on actual Disney productions. From behind glass panes, visitors were allowed to peer into a small section of the studio, aptly called the "fishbowl". At least one sequence from every WDFA film from '' The Rescuers Down Under '' to '' Home On The Range '' was produced in Florida; films created primarily at this facility were '' Lilo & Stitch '', '' Brother Bear '', '' Mulan '', and the Roger Rabbit shorts '' Rollercoaster Rabbit '' and '' Trail Mix-Up ''. WDFA Florda was shut down in late 2003, after the relelase of ''Brother Bear.''
