MCA, Cineplex Studio Planned for Florida

MCA Inc. and its partner, Cineplex Odeon Corp., said Tuesday that they have commitments from nine support firms in the motion picture and television industry to locate their headquarters in a new business center at Universal Studios Florida.

They said the “state of the art” studio is scheduled to open in mid-summer next year in Orlando.

The Los Angeles entertainment giant, which has been in a growing competition with Walt Disney Co. over the opening of new studio facilities, including studio tours, also said the Florida facility will have four sound stages as well as a variety of exterior sets.

The production facilities are being “designed to provide opportunities for people to watch actual shooting and for audience participation in television programs,” as well as for shooting movies and TV programs, the firms said.

In Orlando to make a press presentation for the project were Sidney J. Sheinberg, MCA president and chief operating officer, and Garth H. Drabinsky, chairman and chief executive of Cineplex Odeon, which is 50%-owned by MCA.

Disney, whose main studio is in Burbank, will open another in the Orlando area as a movie-TV facility, including animation work, at the end of next year and begin its studio tour the following spring, a spokesman said Tuesday. The Disney studio will open with three sound stages and add another for the tour, he said.

Universal Studios Florida is being planned with future growth in mind, said Daniel E. Slusser, senior vice president and general manager of MCA’s Universal City Studios. It will have “immediate expansion capabilities” to nine sound stages, he said.