Disney-MGM Studios is a theme park in the Walt Disney World Resort, Florida, USA. It opened on May 1, 1989. 135 acres (546,000 m²) in size, the park's theme is Hollywood classic movies and popular TV entertainment.
The only affiliation that MGM has to the Disney park is via contracts -- contracts that allow Disney to use the MGM name and lion logo in marketing, and separate contracts that allow for specific MGM content to be used in a ride called The Great Movie Ride.
Studio history, operations and production
The idea which led to the Disney-MGM Studios began at its sister park, Epcot. A team of Imagineers led by Marty Sklar and Randy Bright had been given an assignment to create two new pavilions for the park's Future World section. The fruits of the brainstorming sessions were the Wonders of Life pavilion (which has been put on a very limited schedual), and the Great Movie Ride pavilion. The second of the two was to have sat between the Land pavilion and the Journey Into Imagination pavilion, and was to look like a soundstage backdrop, with a movie theatre-style entrance in the middle. The actual attraction is very similar to the plans for the equivalent at Epcot, only, when newly-appointed CEO Michael Eisner saw the plans for the pavilion, he requested that, instead of placing the ride in an already existing park, it should be surrounded by a brand new theme park which extended the showbiz, Hollywood and entertainment theme.
The Walt Disney Company's original concept of the Disney-MGM Studios was not only to operate it as a theme park but also as a full fledged television and motion picture production facility. The studio/production part would house two major television and motion picture production facilities, Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida, where a number of Disney animated projects, including Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, Brother Bear, and sequences from the other 1990s-early 2000s Disney animated features were produced, and the Walt Disney Studios Florida which consisted of several soundstages which were used for various Disney projects including The Disney Channel's All New Mickey Mouse Club, Adventures in Wonderland, and several third party productions including tapings for World Championship Wrestling and the TV series seaQuest DSV. Even Let's Make a Deal was taped here for the 1990-91 season.
A radio studio is also located on the lot which original housed the first children's radio network Radio Aahs which rented the studio until Disney founded Radio Disney and essentially forced Radio Aahs out of business. Unfortunately Disney management including CEO Michael Eisner decided to downsize Disney's Florida operations by closing the animation studio, laying-off personnel and then moving the operations to the main animation studio in Burbank, California. Radio Disney decided it was no longer profitable to operate in Florida so they moved all of their shows from the Disney-MGM Studios to the Radio Disney headquarters in Dallas, Texas and the once bustling Disney Studios Florida soundstages now sit vacant and unused.
In reference to the sound stages, the space is not idle....production continues with short term commercial and pilot TV projects that utilizing the facilities. Location and backlot rentals also continue allowing producers various backdrops at competitive prices.
In 1992 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer filed a lawsuit against The Walt Disney Company claiming they violated a 1985 licensing agreement by operating a working movie and television studio at the Disney-MGM Studio in Florida and Disney filed a countersuit saying that MGM Studios, the MGM Grand Hotel, Casino and Park and MGM Airlines had conspired to violate Disney's right to exclusive use of the name MGM at the Florida theme park and that it would harm Disney's reputation by building the MGM Grand Hotel and Theme Park in Las Vegas, Nevada. On October 23 Superior Court Judge Curtis Rappe ruled against MGM and said that both the Disney-MGM Studios in Florida and the then under construction MGM Grand Theme Park in Las Vegas could use the MGM name as long as the MGM Grand does not carry a 'Hollywood' theme like the Disney-MGM Studios. MGM Grand has since dismantled their Las Vegas theme park and is using the land for hotel expansion.
