The only existing piece of "artwork" for the alleged movie pavilion shows a large flat building painted to look like the sky with clouds its essentially a duplicate of the sky painting that sits over an outside water tank on the Paramount lot (youve see it a hundred times on television). In the middle of the background painting is an old fashioned movie ticket booth and would have been the buildings entrance. It's wedged between The Land and Journey Into Imagination. That's about it - a bit of "blue sky" artwork with the pun was more than a little intentional. You can find substantially more artwork and planning on other pavilions such as the Education pavilion for IBM or a computer pavilion for Intel than you can for any movie pavilion for an unidentified sponsor.
The corporate fib was that Disney implied they were hard at work in their vast secret labs developing a stupendous movie studio tour when those evil trolls from the Black Tower in Universal City pillaged those wondrous plans for their own evil purposes. In fact, the only project in the works at the time were Dolphin & Swan Convention Centers, the Yacht and Beach Club resorts and efforts to find a way of turning World Showcase into a stronger nighttime attraction (to feed all those hungry conventioneers).
The idea of a studio tour began in when Walt started at the old Hyperion facility. Since the era of silent films, all of the studios allowed the public to come watch movies being made. Universal, I believe, started sometime around World War I. The public had always been interested in Disney animation and Disney had produced several shorts over the years explaining the process. As Los Angeles grew into a major tourist destination, people expected to get a look at Disney as well. Walt, however, was more interested in telling stories rather than factory tours hence
Disneyland was born.*
Paramount Pictures, the former home of Michael Eisner, had a tour of their lot for decades. Eisner, when he ran the studio, made no effort to expand the tour, let alone bring in Disney style attractions, or Universal style trams and shows. When he started at Disney, one of his first goals was to buy the CBS television network. Their production facility in Los Angeles, Television City, had tours and hosted shows taped in front of an audience (yes get in line now for The Price is Right). But theres no indication Eisner considered that an important part of the deal. There is simply no evidence that Eisner cared about building a studio tour of any sort.
Nor did Disney need additional production space. Not only is L.A. dotted with studios and other non-Los Angeles locations already established (Toronto, Vancouver) but the Disney lot itself was half filled with unused backlot sets. These included a small American town (
Something Wicked This Way Comes), a Western set (
The Apple Dumpling Gang) and even some old sets left over from
Zorro. The fib that Disney needed to go to the other side of the country to build another back lot is well, a fib. All these sets were torn down and replaced with soundstages and a parking garage, but only years after the Disney/MGM Studio opened.
Even worse for the fib was that Disney seldom used any of the production facilities it built in Florida, save for a couple of
Earnest movies. Nor was there a real need in Florida for any more production space a fact both Disney and Universal would painful learn rather quickly. Florida is just a really, really bad place to make movies because you cant shoot outdoors (you stand in the center of a zillion volts of stage lights during an afternoon rain shower if you dont believe me).
So there is no evidence that Eisner wanted to build a movie tour, Disney did not need production space in Florida, WDW was already expanding without another theme park and the movie pavilion is questionable at best. The reality is that the Disney/MGM Studios was a quick reaction to Universals plans. It was made small to both limit the projects budget and to allow the park to open before the competition.
In my opinion, given the amazing constraints put on them, the Imagineers did a credible job at creating a park. It was still half sized, but being the first to open was the goal. Having anything inside the gates was an afterthought.
