When you think of the various Disney theme parks, distinct premises reflexively enter your mind. Disneyland is the place that started the craze, the proverbial Happiest Place on Earth. Magic Kingdom is the East Coast equivalent, the Most Magical Place on Earth as well as the most popular theme park on the planet. Disney California Adventure is where the majestic mountains of Radiator Springs provide the backdrop for Cars Land. Disney’s Animal Kingdom is the place where Disney created a hybrid of zoo and amusement park. And Disneyland Paris is…the “cultural Chernobyl” known as EuroDisney, which isn’t a good thing.
For better and for worse, most Disney gates enjoy a specific identity. One of the parks at Walt Disney World is the glaring exception. When theme park tourists think of Disney’s Hollywood Studios, ambiguity and almost lost memories are all that arise. Once, the Earffel Tower stood as the landmark identifying Disney-MGM Studios. Later, the Sorcerer’s Hat lorded over the central hub, reminding guests where they were. Today, a hodgepodge of attractions, many of them quite good, comprises the core of Disney’s third gate. But Disney’s Hollywood Studios continues to lack definition. It is the rare Disney theme park that suffers from an identity crisis.
As everyone knows by now, park planners have big ambitions for the third gate. It will eventually emerge from its current cocoon as a largely disappointing half-day park into a resplendent butterfly, ascending into greatness thanks to the impending presences of Star Wars Land and Toy Story Land, a pair of locations that sound like the most desirable spots in a game of Movie Monopoly.
In the interim, critics rightfully assail this gate for its incongruous nature. Ostensibly a movie lover’s paradise, some of its most famous attractions center on a half-century old television show and a rock band whose musicians are all approaching their 70th birthday. Meanwhile, some of the attractions with direct ties to classic Hollywood have shut down in order to make way for potentially more popular events that move Hollywood Studios even further away from its core concept.
How did such a noble, grand idea for a theme park fall erode so dramatically over time? What led to the fall of Disney-MGM Studios? Why have not one but two different would-be iconic landmarks wind up deconstructed? And will the park rise like a phoenix from the ashes once it receives the fresh infusion of entertainment from Pixar and Star Wars? Or is this another desperate ploy that is doomed to fail?
Simply stated, most Disney theme parks succeed to a degree beyond all rational expectations. Why hasn’t Hollywood Studios? Let’s investigate its origins to learn why Imagineers suffered a rare misstep in park introduction, one that was entirely beyond their control. We’ll detail the messy public divorce between two major corporations that undid this new park before it ever began. Then, we’ll look at the steps they’ve taken since 1989 to bandage the festering wound that is the half-day park at the third gate. Finally, we’ll look forward to make some educated guesses about how much Star Wars Land and Pixar Place will mean to the bottom line of the park. Here, then, is the shaky history of Disney’s Hollywood Studios, the most organic yet also most awkward of all the company’s theme parks.
History repeats itself
Competition brings out the best in people. This belief has become one of the linchpins of the business world to the point that the laws of the land expressly prohibit monopolies. Even The Walt Disney Company, who owns a functional monopoly in the theme park industry, is subject to outside pressure. Whether they should worry about what other parks are doing is up for debate.
For instance, Universal Studios Recreation Group, a division of NBCUniversal (owned by Comcast), has grown at an exponential rate ever since they acquired the license to the Harry Potter franchise. This fact is important for two reasons, one of which we’ll discuss below. For now, what matters is that from 2009 to 2015, Disney theme park traffic increased 18.8 million. Universal Studios garnered 21.1 million new vacationers.
On the surface, the gap seems modest, but that’s because I’ve only provided you with half the story. In 2009, Disney’s Parks and Resorts division enjoyed attendance of 119.1 million. Universal Studios was only at 23.7 million. Ignoring percentage growth, which sometimes paints an inaccurate picture of a situation, Universal Studios has added more park guests than its more storied opponent in the oligopoly of theme park tourism. It managed this feat despite starting at a wildly disadvantageous position.
In short, Universal Studios is eating Disney’s lunch in the game of expanding the brand. In a way, this situation is prophecy self-fulfilled for Disney execs. What’s happening today is something that park planners prophesied a long time ago, all the way back during the mid-1980s.
A different sort of Cold War
In 1985, Universal Studios enjoyed widespread success in mainstream cinema. Their biggest hits of 1985 were timeless classics such as Fletch, Out of Africa, and Back to the Future. Meanwhile, Disney bet their summer box office campaign on…The Black Cauldron. It was so unsuccessful that the company’s boardwalk questioned the viability of Disney animation moving forward.
Disney vs. Universal Studios is an ongoing battle in Hollywood. Fans of the latter institution note that their idea of a Hollywood amusement park dates back to 1915, the first time guests had the opportunity to tour the studio backlot. Disney fans (rightfully) note that Disneyland became the first true theme park in the world at its 1955 debut. Roughly a decade later, Universal Studios copied some of the concepts of theme park attractions, co-opting them for what we now know as Universal Studios Hollywood. Since July 15, 1964, the two companies have warred against one another as the two most heralded businesses in the theme park industry.
Then again, the battle has been largely one-sided. Before Harry Potter, saying that Universal Studios was competing against Disney for theme park tourists is the equivalent of my saying I’m competing against LeBron James to become the greatest living basketball player. Even if it’s true in the most technical sense, the only commonality between us is that we’ve both shot a ball into a hoop countless times. Just because Universal Studios had a clever Jaws encounter didn’t make it the equivalent of the Happiest Place on Earth.
Despite the inequality between the two theme parks during the first two decades of existence for Universal Studios Hollywood, Disney execs kept a wary eye on their foes. When rumors arose of a new Universal Studios theme park arriving in central Florida, these park planners experienced a certain familiarity. Similar rumors had proven true during the 1960s only 35 miles from Disneyland. Why wouldn’t Universal Studios once again follow Disney in building a theme park near Walt Disney World? Once again, Disney execs felt the surge of adrenaline that stems from competition. And it led them to explore a new avenue for a theme park, albeit one that returned the company to its roots.
It takes people to make the dream a reality
Walt Disney plotted a course for his themed lands that didn’t conform to any single blueprint. At times, he was almost stubbornly averse to tethering his parks to Hollywood convention. And that’s odd in and of itself since so many of the early Disneyland attractions employed techniques Disney and his Imagineers learned by making films. From the founder’s perspective, he’d already told stories in that sort of format. Disneyland and the planned Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow afforded him new avenues to entertain children of all ages.
In the aftermath of Walt Disney’s death, Imagineers tried to honor his legacy to the best of their ability. The result of their efforts was Walt Disney World. The place that their founder envisioned as a functional city evolved into something different initially before eventually becoming a version of his intention. First, a theme park originated there on land conceived as a targeted utopia. Afterward, part of the vision of EPCOT came to fruition at EPCOT Center’s World Showcase, which did include a version of a permanent World’s Fair.
In the time between Magic Kingdom’s arrival in 1971 and EPCOT Center’s start in 1982, most of Walt Disney’s ideas had devolved. They became debased by people who didn’t understand them quite like he did. After EPCOT Center opened, the big thinkers at Disney faced a single difficult question. “What’s next?”
In choosing the next steps for Disney’s theme parks, one thing they recognized is that Uncle Walt was the one who specifically chose to dissociate his parks from Hollywood. The park planners who followed him felt so such compunction. If anything, they lamented the fact that they now had three parks operating on a daily basis yet none of them included specific ties to the work of Walt Disney. Sure, they were tributes and derivatives everywhere in sight at Disneyland and Walt Disney World, but none of them screamed Classic Hollywood.
With plenty of land to spare in Orlando, Florida, everyone at Disney agreed that their third gate should have more ties to the early days of the Disney Empire. They built a checklist of items they can use to populate this new park. Virtually all of them would enjoy ties to the Hollywood of old as well as the popular movies and television shows of modern times. Disney architects crafted an entire proposal for their next enterprise, a celebration of all things cinema.
Still, nobody was pushing for the third gate until rumors of a Universal Studios Florida grew louder in 1985. While the park itself wouldn’t open its gates to the public until 1990, corporate execs at Universal started evaluating land acquisitions by 1985. Disney still had employees familiar with this process from their own Florida real estate deals two decades prior. Through their local connections, they quickly uncovered the truth. Universal Studios Florida would become a real thing within a couple of years.
Disney executives felt pressured to act. That’s how competition can impact a business, even one that is light years beyond the competition in terms of market share.
The Great Movie Ride(s)
Once Disney officials verified the mere possibility of a new theme park within 10 miles of Walt Disney World, they proactively moved to step on the neck of the competition. They already had the plan in place, too. Better yet, the ideas driving the third gate were the stuff of Disney royalty. No, I’m not referencing any princesses but instead then-CEO Michael Eisner and future Disney Legend Marty Sklar.
During the lead-up to EPCOT Center, Sklar and another Imagineer, Randy Bright, pitched several ideas of pavilions. One of them stood out from the rest. It was entitled, “Great Moments at the Movies.” You know it today as The Great Movie Ride. This “pavilion” would have created a direct connection between EPCOT Center and Disney’s storied movie history. It also would have celebrated the other classic tales of the golden age of cinema. The only problem with the pitch was that it was too good.
Eisner and Sklar quickly agreed that Great Moments at the Movies would feel like a cheat as a pavilion. Instead, it was a concept worthy of an entirely new theme park. That was the plan that wound up in mothballs before Universal Studios unintentionally started a new theme park arms race when they acquired land in Central Florida. At that point, Disney officials decided that they already had a premise that was construction-ready. All they needed to do was flesh out a few more ideas, and they could break ground on a third park.
Fate was in their corner at the start of the new venture. In 1985, Disney entered into a new agreement with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM) that gave the Mouse House the rights to the MGM name. Disney could use the historic, world-famous MGM name and Leo the Lion logo for their new theme park. It was a savvy acquisition that opened up the celebrated body of the MGM library.
Disney so loved the idea that they planned to do it twice. They would open a second gate at Disneyland around the same time as the third gate at Walt Disney World. This location would sit in Burbank, roughly 35 miles away from Disneyland. The announced name was Disney-MGM Studio Backlot, and it was a clever shot across the bow of Universal Studios. As they attempted to attack Disney in Florida, the Mouse House would target them in the greater Los Angeles area. Theme park tourists on both coasts could enjoy Great Movie Rides.
I hate when mom and dad fight
Image: Disney
Divorces are always hardest on the children. In the case of The Walt Disney Company, their marriage with MGM barely lasted long enough to enjoy the honeymoon. After culminated the relationship in 1985, MGM quickly met somebody else: Ted Turner.
The man colloquially known as The Mouth of the South had a single purpose in the MGM purchase. He coveted the movie catalogue that would fittingly become the cornerstone of Turner Classic Movies, whose presence has been integral to the existence of The Great Movie Ride since its inception. Turner purchased the company, acquiring tremendous debt in the process. In order to negate some of his debt, Turner flipped many of the assets from his MGM acquisition quickly. Within months of his becoming owner of the fabled corporation, he’d stripped it for parts.
Once and future MGM owner Kirk Kerkorian purchased some of those pieces from his former boss quickly. From them, he rebuilt an entertainment division known as MGM/UA Entertainment. It was one of those loathsome 1980s corporate deals that impacted the lives of thousands of employees while a few multi-millionaires found new avenues to billionaire status. What nobody at Disney could have anticipated is how much that transaction would impact their planned third gate.
Light on capital and seeing shadows everywhere, the new corporate overlords on the board of MGM/UA Entertainment loathed the Disney deal. It heavily capitalized on their brand without offering much tangible benefit in return. Disney’s licensing contract wasn’t satisfactory in their estimation. They sought legal excuses to break the deal. In reality, they were perfectly willing to extend the contract as long as Disney paid them more money. Understandably, Uncle Walt’s team wasn’t interested in doing so. From their perspective, they’d signed a legally binding document that was mutually advantageous to both parties. In their estimation, Disney-MGM Studios and its California twin would anoint MGM as the carrier of the torch of classic Hollywood cinema.
At the time, MGM/UA was all about the Benjamins, though. They discovered ambiguous language in their contract that allowed them to sue Disney. The point of conflict was, humorously enough, the unfunny Ernest Goes To… movies.
From the very beginning, Disney intended their third gate to double as a functional movie and television studio. They would film productions there while allowing park guests to watch the process unfold. Sometimes, the proverbial live studio audience mentioned as legal jargon during the credits for sitcoms would be people visiting Disney-MGM Studios for the day. For their part, MGM had a problem with it. That wasn’t the breaking point, though.
Ernest Goes to Divorce Court
The backlots at Disney’s new third gate at Walt Disney World were ready well before the park itself opened to guests. Rather than waste unused space, Disney embraced the filmmaking process by scheduling productions at their new Florida studio. One of the most heralded ones at the time was – I’m not joking – Ernest Saves Christmas.
In 1987, comedian Jim Varney capitalized on the surging popularity of his too-stupid-to-live but well-intended character, Ernest. The first outing, Ernest Goes to Camp, was a box office hit that earned a factor of seven more than its modest $3 million. One of the things Disney loved about the Florida studio lots is how well they could control the costs of their Touchstone Pictures productions. Even as Varney’s salary escalated due to delivering a critically praised box office hit (again, I swear this is all true), Ernest Saves Christmas cost Disney only $6 million to produce. It was another hit, grossing approximately $28 million.
This financial gain was a Pyrrhic victory for Disney. The attorneys at MGM attacked the language of their signed contract with Disney. They maintained that their business partner didn’t have the right to produce movies at the new theme park. An MGM spokesman argued, “”We thought we were licensing it to an attraction, a mock studio.” Effectively, MGM sued Disney for $100 million in 1989 because they signed a partnership agreement that meant Disney-MGM Studios was supposed to be fake, not real. From their perspective, they wouldn’t willingly enable a competitor in the film industry to create movies at a joint site without compensation.
Disney execs felt that the claims were laughable. They believed that they’d been forthcoming about their intentions from the beginning. Instead, they considered MGM’s lawsuit as a money grab from a cash-poor corporation. More important, Disney was salty about the attempt to break the contract. They fought back in vicious manner.
L.A. Law
One of the central tenets of the contract signed between MGM and Disney was that the latter company could use the MGM name for theme parks. Once Disney learned of MGM’s plan to sue to break the contract, they targeted their opponent’s flank. It was an open secret in the tourism industry that MGM planned to build a 4,000-room resort in Las Vegas. Part of their new project would involve a fake studio tour, exactly the sort of thing they’d contractually agreed to let Disney build using the MGM name.
In the annals of corporate intrigue, this situation was one of the most cut and dried from a legal perspective. Disney had licensing rights for MGM, which meant that any attempt by the latter company to build anything with even surface level similarity to Disney-MGM Studios would violate terms of the agreement. The Vegas resort including a studio tour was a flimsy argument, but it was still an unmistakable contract violation. Disney sued in September of 1989, a month ahead of the $100 million countersuit from MGM that they’d anticipated for the body of three years.
The matter wasn’t settled for good until October of 1992. At that point, a judge ruled in Disney’s favor. They could continue to use the MGM name and logo per the contract agreement. The judge also sided with MGM with regards to what we now know as the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Disney couldn’t block its opening although Eisner himself pointedly stated that his company might sue again if the studio tour became too much like anything from Disney-MGM Studios.
Legal experts agreed that the judge’s ruling heavily favored Disney, and the outcome of the entire situation was that both corporations wasted a tremendous amount of money on legal fees for what was a clearly defined contractual issue. MGM simply wanted to get out from under the contract or get paid more from Disney. Ultimately, they failed on both counts.
Visitation rights
The problem with any divorce is that it has a detrimental impact on the children. In the case of MGM vs. Disney, the moment MGM tried to break their ironclad contract with Disney, the die was cast. Disney-MGM Studios, ostensibly a joint venture between two of the most iconic movie studios ever, was revealed as another petty Hollywood squabble between power players. Disney’s third gate suffered from the beginning due to this awkward schism in the relationship.
On May 1, 1989, Disney-MGM Studios opened. With six months, the two principal studios involved were suing each other for an incomprehensible amount of money. You can imagine the turmoil this caused behind the scenes at the park. Many of the ideas including MGM properties underwent obscene amounts of scrutiny to guarantee that they didn’t provide MGM additional wiggle room in the legal battle. In the end, virtually all ties to MGM beyond the name, logo, and The Great Movie Ride inclusions were stripped from the initial attractions. And there were only two of those.
Despite all the grand ambitions Eisner and Sklar had for their new park, the legal wrangling negated many options. When Disney-MGM Studios debuted, theme park tourists enjoyed precisely two options. They could board The Great Movie Ride or they could take the Studio Backlot Tour. For all the criticism the park we now know as Disney’s Hollywood Studios receives today, its 1989 debut was dramatically worse. The studios involved were embroiled in a classic Hollywood feud that caused both parties to behave in self-destructive fashion.
Image: Disney
The Great Movie Ride, which had once stood out as a grand idea for an EPCOT Center pavilion, instead became the signature attraction at Disney-MGM Studios. And even its presence was awkward. Many of the ride’s high points celebrated MGM classics such as The Wizard of Oz. By the time the ride opened, Disney execs hated the thought of giving MGM that sort of credit for their library. Even worse, some of the early parts of The Great Movie Ride suffered from technical malfunctions that were difficult to correct. As unbelievable as this statement may sound, in the early days of Disney-MGM Studios, the greatest unsullied accomplishment was an Ernest Goes To… movie.
Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Since Florida lacked a natural film presence at the time, Disney execs scrambled to put their new space to good use. They wound up rebooting the Mickey Mouse Club with new episodes filming at Disney-MGM Studios. They also offered park visitors the opportunity to watch various animated projects unfold. A few lucky folks can honestly say that they watched Lilo & Stitch during the illustration process.
The other odd type of television production during the early days of the third gate involved professional wrestling. Ted Turner, Disney’s former partner for a few months in the endeavor, acquired World Championship Wrestling, too. His advisors asked if they could hold WCW television tapings at the park. Disney’s newest development offered better television production values than southern arenas. Starting in 1993, WCW filmed several weeks’ worth of television tapings for upcoming shows. Since wrestling outcomes are determined in advance, guests attending these live shows would know upcoming wrestling champions well ahead of the rest of the fans.
Of course, wrestling icons such as Sting, Macho Man Randy Savage, and Hulk Hogan weren’t the most famous celebrities working at Disney-MGM Studios. The aforementioned Mickey Mouse Club dominated the A-List, although nobody realized it at the time. Disney cast members from the reboot of the Walt Disney television show included Christina Aguilera, Ryan Gosling, Keri Russell, Britney Spears, and Justin Timberlake. In hindsight, that was the greatest achievement during the early days of the park.
The Two Towers
Image: Disney
Even the landmarks from Disney-MGM Studios and Disney’s Hollywood Studios have suffered from the MGM curse. In 2016, park planners tore down the pointless Earffel Tower. The original landmark denoting the third gate was supposed to stand as its answer to Cinderella Castle at Magic Kingdom and Spaceship Earth at Epcot. That structure, the Earffel Tower, doesn’t even exist at Walt Disney World today. The 130-foot tall construct was a replica of the original one at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California. And the water tower didn’t even contain water!
The primary purpose of the Earffel Tower was to provide a distant visual of the park. It also functioned as a highlight of the Studio Backlot Tour. Once that attraction closed in 2014, the landmark seemed like a waste of space. In its absence, The Great Movie Ride is now the only opening day attraction from Disney-MGM Studios that still exists today.
Part of the reason that the Earffel Tower diminished in importance was the arrival of the Sorcerer’s Hat in 2001. The iconic accessory debuted in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice segment of Fantasia. More than 60 years later, Disney constructed a 122-feet tall representation of it as the new “face” of Disney-MGM Studios. People hated the new landmark. I cannot stress this point enough. Personally, I always thought it was kind of cool, as I’m a huge fan of Fantasia. Over the years, I discovered that the quickest way to pick a fight in a Disney online community was to praise the hat.
Why a giant blue hat caused such animus among theme park tourists is up for speculation. What we know for certain is that Disney eventually ceded to the vocal majority on the topic. In 2015, 14 years after its arrival, a construction crew started to take the hat apart piece by piece. You can watch a time lapse video of the process here. It’s a sad turn of events for the second potential Disney landmark at their third Walt Disney World gate.
Image: Disney
If you’re scoring at home, Disney-MGM Studios started with two attractions in 1989. Over the years, they’ve had two primary landmarks, not counting the recreation of the Chinese Theatre at The Great Movie Ride. Out of those four major endeavors, exactly one lasts today. Amusingly, it too has ties to Ted Turner. In the aftermath of Turner’s MGM acquisition and resale, he controlled the rights to Warner Bros. films created prior to 1959 and MGM films released prior to May of 1986, the point of (second) sale for the corporation. Turner capitalized on his new media library by launching Turner Classic Movies (TCM), a staple of cable television since 1994.
In 2014, Turner’s business bravado once again led to a business relationship with The Walt Disney Company. TCM licensed new content for The Great Movie Ride, which had recently turned 25 years old. In exchange, TCM would receive endorsements throughout the pavilion as well as sponsorship credit for the ride. Accredited TCM host Robert Osborne lords over the proceedings as the host whose disembodied voice provides narration. Through this strategy, Disney managed to reinvigorate the lone remaining original attraction from Disney-MGM Studios.
The bigger change occurred a few years prior, though. Even before the two landmarks were taken apart, Disney park planners finally acknowledged the obvious. The ugly mess caused by the infamous legal battle with MGM left the third gate in turmoil. Guests subconsciously associated it with failure and chaos. In an attempt to remove the stigma of the name, Disney dropped MGM from the name in January of 2008. Even this proactive move failed to redeem the reputation of the park, though. Instead, a popular weekend event triggered the events that have placed Disney’s Hollywood Studios on its current trajectory.
The Four-Billion Dollar Man and his universe
Image: Disney
Disney employees always enjoyed a warm relationship with George Lucas, the creator of the Star Wars franchise. Coincidentally, this union began around the time that Disney Imagineers started to plan the next Walt Disney World gate during the mid-1980s. Lucas interacted with Imagineers on a concept that eventually evolved into Star Tours. It quickly became one of the most popular attractions at each Disney park that hosted a version.
One of those locations was Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The first iteration of Star Tours began there in 1989 and lasted until September of 2010. At that point, its replacement was ready. That sequel known as Star Tours – The Adventure Continues stands as one of the most brilliant ride designs in motion simulator history. That’s due to the fact that each ride is variable with more than 100 permutations possible as of late 2015.
Lucas loved the ride and relished his relationship with Disney. He believed that they were the one movie studio that loved and respected cinema the way that he did. In 2012, Lucas sold LucasFilm to Disney for $4 billion. The rest is box office history as the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens shattered virtually every major box office record in existence. The transaction also had a major impact on Disney’s Parks and Resorts division.
Starting in 1997, the Mouse House held Star Wars weekends wherein they encouraged fans of the movie franchise to visit Disney’s Hollywood Studios. During these events, actors from the movie would appear, and cast members would portray characters from what was then a trilogy. They’d also dress up in new costumes that placed iconic Disney characters in Jedi outfits. It was a cosplayer’s dream.
Since the third gate rarely enjoyed huge attendance numbers relative to Epcot and Magic Kingdom, it was the perfect location to host these weekends. By 2003, Disney understood that they had a hit on their hands. Star Wars Weekends were spurring traffic spikes at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Park planners correctly decided to make them an annual event, and anyone who has ever attended can verify that the difference in attendance is dramatic. As has always been the case, Star Wars is a huge money maker in virtually every form. The Star Wars Weekends concept quickly became the most popular time on the calendar for the third gate outside of The Osborne Family Spectacle of Lights. For years, rumors abounded that Disney was considering a larger Star Wars presence, and the home of Star Wars Weekends made the most sense.
Wizards versus Jedi
Perhaps nothing would have come from this rumor if not for the longstanding paranoia Disney felt toward Universal Studios. Logically, no reason existed for this fear. Since the introduction of Universal Studios Florida, that park had barely caused a ripple in the theme park industry. In 2009, the third and fourth gates at Walt Disney World earned 9.7 million and 9.6 million in attendance. Universal Studios Florida only garnered 5.5 million.
The inability to bleed market share from Walt Disney World is precisely why Universal execs were willing to do something daring. They agreed to a contract with J.K. Rowling that Disney wouldn’t. In the process, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter came to central Florida, thereby fundamentally altering the history of many theme parks across the world. Disney wasn’t about to build an entire area for an intellectual property they didn’t own, no matter how child-friendly it was. Universal had every reason to do so. And that’s how competition can change everything.
Fast forward to the end of 2015. Universal Studios Florida now has attendance of 9.6 million whereas Disney’s Hollywood Studios is at 10.8 million. One grew by more than four million tickets sold in six years. The only managed barely a quarter of that. Disney execs recognized their mistake. They’d rested on their laurels for too long, and the worst had happened. A theme park that wasn’t one of theirs had become the most innovative and daring.
Anyone can connect the dots from there. Disney witnessed the appeal of a themed expansion land focused on a specific intellectual property. They saw it spike sales and draw newfound attendants to a previously barren park. They watched revenue increase dramatically. And the worst part was that it happened to a competitor in the industry instead of them.
Combine all of these facts with the recent acquisition of Lucasfilm. Disney now possessed a franchise that (arguably) exceeded Harry Potter in global popularity. They owned a Walt Disney World gate that had maintained a strange existence as a half-day park for a quarter-century. And they watched with horror as a rival turned a concept they’d rejected into a complete, viable business model.
One of the engrossing aspects of Hollywood history is that studio bosses are always stirring up controversy. They go to war with one another in awkward power plays that frequently cause more harm than good to both parties. In the case of Disney’s Hollywood Studios, it’s fallen victim to such conflicts since even before its inception.
First, Disney’s paranoia over a new Universal Studios theme park in Florida led to the genesis of the third gate. Then, a questionable business decision by Ted Turner caused so many rifts at MGM that former and current employees of the company suffered from the ramifications for years afterward. Then, some of the new MGM corporate execs resented and lamented the existing contract for Disney-MGM Studios, which had yet to debut. They chose to renege on the deal, letting the court system decide the fate of the park.
Image: Disney
All of these issues fostered a negative stigma about the park. Even Disney cast members questioned how many resources they should invest in such a troubled project. When they did choose signature landmarks for their third Walt Disney World gate, those ideas were flawed and generally disliked. Even the one great idea that has served as the backbone of the park over the years, The Great Movie Ride, suffered due to the corporate war between Disney and MGM. Eventually, the man who accidentally started the feud, Ted Turner, unintentionally became a solution to one of the problems.
Still, Disney’s Hollywood Studios would continue to exist in a strange sort of half-life if not for an attraction called Star Tours. It built a relationship between Disney and George Lucas that eventually expanded into a popular getaway known as Star Wars Weekends. From there, Lucas developed enough trust in Disney as a business that he sold his life’s work to them. This single business investment of $4 billion might prove itself as the saving grace of Disney’s Hollywood Studios, which will finally evolve into a full-day park in coming years.
