Studio Opens Glitzy Florida Movie Park

The $630-million home-away-from-home for E.T., Ghostbusters, Jaws and King Kong made its official debut today with dozens of Hollywood stars joining Steven Spielberg to “ride the movies” at Universal Studios Florida.

The combination theme park and film production center features high-tech entertainment on a big scale--showing visitors how movies are made while letting them in on the action.

James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Bill Cosby and Michael J. Fox were among the 50 or so top names parading down a replica of Hollywood Boulevard in limousines to open the festivities.

Sidney Sheinberg, president of the park’s co-owner, MCA Inc., today called the 444-acre site “a swampland turned into a dreamland.”

But the park wasn’t totally up and running. Technical glitches prevented some of the major rides from operating at a special party for some 4,500 delegates to a travel industry convention Wednesday night.

Sheinberg and studio technical officials said “most everything would be in operation” today but that problems and delays were expected because of the complexity of the equipment.

The park, owned by California-based MCA and London’s Rank Organisation PLC, features classic movie-themed rides and “participatory adventures,” many of which were conceived and designed by film director Spielberg, Universal’s creative consultant.

Visitors go soaring with E.T., the Extraterrestrial, survive the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, agonize over an encounter with the great white shark from “Jaws,” get buffeted in an aerial tramway by a three-story-tall King Kong and lose themselves in the live-action Ghostbusters haunting.

Universal also has the largest movie and TV sound stage area outside Hollywood. Production has been under way since 1988, and 13 feature films and 500 television episodes are to go before the cameras this year.

MCA is trying to grab a share of Florida’s booming theme park industry, a business dominated by entertainment giant Walt Disney World.

The Disney-MGM Studios, based on the same concept but about half the size of Universal Studios, completed its first year of operation May 1. It recorded about 8 million visits in its first year.