Disney <i> Did </i> Offer Deal on Parks to MCA, Cineplex Chief Says

The chief executive of Cineplex Odeon Corp., which is co-financing a new Florida studio tour attraction with MCA Inc., on Thursday corroborated an MCA executive’s story that Walt Disney Co. had offered to drop plans to build a Burbank entertainment complex if MCA would abandon its proposed theme park near Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla.

The original accusation, made earlier this week by MCA Vice President Jay S. Stein, has been denied by top Disney officials.

But Thursday, Cineplex President Garth Drabinsky backed Stein’s account. “The communication was made to the venture,” he said, refusing to provide details.

If Disney proceeds with its combined retail and entertainment complex, to be known as the Disney-MGM Backlot, the Burbank attraction presumably would hurt business at the nearby Universal Studios Tour, which MCA has been operating for 23 years. More recently, MCA has added a year-round amphitheater, restaurants and offices on its 420-acre property, and it expects to open a 17-screen theater complex this summer with Cineplex.

Earlier this week, the Burbank City Council granted Disney a one-year option to buy a 40-acre site from the city for $1 million. Disney has estimated that it could spend $150 million to $300 million on a complex of shops, restaurants, theaters, clubs and hotel, and said it would move its animation department and Disney Channel cable-TV operation to the property as well.

Neither Drabinsky nor MCA President and Chief Operating Officer Sidney J. Sheinberg would divulge just how Disney made the alleged offer.

“It doesn’t serve our purposes at this point to reveal who made the communication, to whom it was made, and how we learned about it,” Sheinberg said Thursday, interviewed in a conference call with Drabinsky and MCA’s Stein.

“But as far as knowing about the communication,” Sheinberg said, “or what we believe to have been a communication--that information . . .is known to Jay Stein, (MCA Chairman) Lew Wasserman, Sid Sheinberg and Garth Drabinsky, and we believe it.”

Drabinsky said Sheinberg’s account was “absolutely” accurate.

Wasserman, chief executive of MCA for the past 41 years, was traveling and could not be reached for comment, an assistant said.

Stein, who has described the alleged Disney offer of six or seven weeks ago as “blackmail tactics,” is president of MCA Recreation Services Group and has overseen the studio tour for 20 years.

Disney spokesman Erwin D. Okun responded Thursday: “We’re concentrating our efforts on creating (in Burbank) one of the best attractions in the nation, and not on responding to allegations we have already responded to, by both Michael Eisner, the chairman of our company, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, chairman of Walt Disney Studios. I cannot give the comments made by the gentlemen from MCA the dignity of a response.”

The relationship between MCA and Toronto-based Cineplex dates to December, 1985, when they agreed to build the theater project at Universal City. In 1986, MCA acquired 50% of the fast-growing movie theater company, but MCA is restricted to less than one-third of Cineplex’s voting shares, under Canadian law.

Five months ago, Cineplex formed another joint venture with MCA to build the new Orlando tourist attraction, which is scheduled to open in 1989. Although MCA first proposed its Florida tour in 1981, the project was delayed when MCA failed to find a suitable partner.

In 1986, Disney said it would build its own $300-million tour at Disney World, not far from Orlando.

The Disney-MGM Studio Tour in Florida is scheduled to open next year, utilizing some themes from MGM’s film library under a licensing agreement.