A Rivalry of Titanic Proportions

It’s the clash of the titans!

It’s Universal Studios owner MCA Inc. versus Walt Disney Co. At stake: dominance of the studio-linked entertainment business.

In one corner, MCA operates the only movie studio hooked up to its own theme park; in the other, Disney has the highest profile of any outdoor entertainment operator in the world and it has marched like Napoleon in mouse ears since former movie executives Michael Eisner and Frank Wells replaced Disney family management in 1983.

The focus of the rivalry lies in Florida, where both companies are building studio tours already touted as bigger and better than the original Universal tour here. The two Florida studio tours are going up within a few miles of each other--Disney’s tour is in the Disney World complex--and each is set to begin operating next year, though Disney will probably have a jump on MCA by opening several months earlier.

Disney hasn’t announced plans for new studios or a studio tour anywhere outside of Florida, but potential competitive projects elsewhere have kept relations between the two companies heated.

After Disney popped up in Universal Studios’ back yard last year with its plan for a Burbank entertainment complex, MCA jabbed back with a lawsuit against the City of Burbank, alleging that Burbank and Disney had cooked up a sweetheart deal that prevented other companies from offering competing proposals.

When Disney withdrew from the project the other day, a Burbank official referred to MCA’s lawsuit as “nothing more than an effort by MCA to harass their rivals at Disney.”

Asked about the Burbank official’s reaction to the lawsuit, MCA President Sidney J. Sheinberg said in a brief interview, “I don’t want to talk anymore about anything that we feel toward Disney. We love everybody,” he went on, a little sarcastically. “Peace, love and friendship.”

Before MCA filed its lawsuit against Burbank last year, MCA alleged that Disney had privately suggested to MCA and its Florida partner, Cineplex-Odeon, that if the latter two would drop their Florida tour, Disney would drop the project in Burbank. Disney executives Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg have denied this.

MCA Vice President Jay Stein, who made the allegation, says now that “the only reason I was upset when Disney announced its Burbank plan was because they (Disney) were offered a $35-million subsidy (from the city) in the form of free land that to the best of my knowledge was not offered to anyone else.”

According to Disney spokesman Erwin Okun, “There’s never been any animosity (toward MCA) on our part. You really have to look at the lawsuits and MCA for its reaction to find the heart of this.”

Okun said the MCA lawsuit had nothing to do with Disney’s withdrawal from the Burbank plan, which was to have included shops, restaurants, nightclubs, a Hollywood fantasy hotel and a ride through famous movie attractions.

After Disney studied the plan for 22,000 man-hours, by Okun’s count, the company figured the plan would be not economically feasible.

The Disney-MCA rivalry was launched when Disney outfoxed MCA three years ago by being the first to break ground for its movie tour in Florida, “The Disney MGM Studio Tour,” after MCA had spent four years trying to raise money and a partner for its planned tour there.

Since then, MCA has seemingly chased Disney around the world. For example, MCA announced plans to build a theme park in France or Spain after Disney settled on a Paris suburb for the first European Disneyland, which opens in 1992. Then MCA joined forces with Nippon Steel to plan a studio and theme park in Japan, where the Tokyo Disneyland celebrates its fifth anniversary this week.

The big question is whether anyone, including MCA, can compete with the tourist wallop wielded by Disney World, which includes the Magic Kingdom (Disneyland East), Epcot Center and a host of new attractions opening along with the studio tour, including Typhoon Lagoon, billed as the world’s largest water park, and Pleasure Island, a nighttime entertainment center.

According to Disney, more than 20 million people visit Walt Disney World annually, and the company estimates that at least a quarter of those will patronize Disney’s movie tour.

A glossy color tabloid promotional paper, the Disney MGM Studios News, already is on its way to 100,000 media contacts and “opinion makers,” as Disney World executive Charlie Ridgeway puts it. To be published regularly, the first issue (May, 1988) features a picture of critic Gene Siskel making a thumbs-up gesture, standing beside a thumbs-up Mickey Mouse.

Producers have begun shooting at the new Disney studios in Florida, which has three sound stages.

Nearby, MCA is readying its four new sound stages for use beginning this summer.

According to Ridgeway, there is lots of room in Florida for both tours. And, he adds, “I think the fact that there are two studios being developed here probably makes it more likely that a significant movie and TV industry will develop here.”