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- [00:00]
David Brown
Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of Business wars ad free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app. July 29, 1981. Los Angeles, California. Inside a small gray stucco building on the Universal Studios lot, Sidney Sheinberg switches off the lights. Sheinberg is one of the most powerful executives in Hollywood. The president and chief operating officer of Universal's parent company, mca. He's a lawyer by training, a deal maker by instinct, and the man who turned Universal into a force in television and film. Today, he's gathered trusted peers and potential investors to show off a new concept in theme parks. A slide projector churns to life. A photograph of Orlando, Florida, the home of Disney World, lights up on the wall. Sheinberg stands beside the projector and lays out a grand plan. MCA has already gone public with its Florida ambitions. The announcement is in the paper today, but a press release is a flag planted in the ground. What Sheinberg is showing this select group is how he knows Universal can't out Disney. Disney. Especially not in Orlando, 10 miles from Disney World's front gate. So his pitch is different. Universal will build a movie studio theme park, a place where visitors can ride rides while also stepping behind the curtain of Tinseltown. They'll move through backlot streets, sound stages, production offices, and special effects demonstrations. They'll watch films and television shows being made by famous directors and actors. They might even become part of the show, brought in as studio audiences. It will sell tickets like a theme park, but it will also function as a working studio. Sheinberg's slides take his audience street by street through the proposed Universal Studios Florida. This isn't some vague pitch deck. It's an idea in an advanced state of development. Sheinberg has brought complete blueprints and color renderings. There are plans for backlot sets, rides, shows, demonstrations, production facilities, dressing rooms, edit suites and screening rooms. The whole thing has the feeling of trespassing on a movie set. Then Sheinberg drills into the figures projected returns, attendance numbers, construction costs and operating assumptions. Even the possible effect of a future gasoline shortage on a family of four driving to Florida. It's almost absurdly detailed. And it's all highly confidential, which is what makes the identity of the audience so important. The executives in the room are from Paramount. Today, that might sound strange. Universal and Paramount are rival Hollywood studios. But in the early 1980s, the movie business is smaller and more entangled. MCA is looking for a financial partner for its Florida park, and Paramount is one of the companies it trusts enough to approach these Men are competitors, but they're also part of the same Hollywood circle. Sheinberg believes he's showing trusted colleagues a business opportunity. Years later, however, he'll come to see this meeting quite differently. Because somewhere in that room, Universal will insist, is Michael Eisner, the senior Paramount executive who will soon become the chairman of rival Disney. Disney will deny Eisner ever saw the plans. Sheinberg will say he was there in the dark, watching him lay out the future and remembering everything. So when Eisner later joins Disney and reveals a plan for his own studio based attraction, the question of who was in the room that day will ignite the fiercest rivalry in the history of theme parks.
- [04:34]
Raza Jaffrey
I'm Raza Jaffrey and in the new season of the Spy who we go back in time to meet Benedict Arnold, the spy who betrayed the American Revolution. As America fights for freedom from Britain, Arnold emerges as one of the rebels greatest generals. But when his loyalty is pushed to the limit, he turns spy and devises a plot to shatter the rebellion and make George Washington a prisoner. Follow the Spy who Now wherever you listen to podcasts, you can also listen to the full season of the Spy who Betrayed the American Revolution. Early and ad free on Audible.
- [05:04]
Investigative Journalist
I heard a rumor that the CIA poisoned my granddad, Gordon Banks, the world's number one goalkeeper. It happened in Mexico, supposedly at the World cup in nineteen nineteen seventy.
- [05:15]
David Brown
Sounds crazy.
- [05:16]
Raza Jaffrey
I'm an investigative journalist on the hunt for evidence.
- [05:18]
David Brown
We needed to do some extraordinary things to counter the Soviets.
- [05:23]
Raza Jaffrey
This is foul play, an unbelievable tale of sports, spies and family secrets.
- [05:29]
Investigative Journalist
Listen now wherever you get your podcasts or early and ad free on Audible.
- [05:39]
David Brown
From audible originals. I'm david brown and this is business wars. When Universal first plotted to challenge Disney in Florida at the dawn of the 1980s, it seemed wildly outmatched. At the time, Disney's theme parks were one of its most important businesses, far larger and steadier than the movie studio. And at the center of it all was Disney World, the Orlando resort, full of attractions, hotels and restaurants designed to keep families entertained and spending for as long as possible. Which is exactly how Walt Disney himself planned it. His first theme park, Disneyland in California, had been a triumph. But he hated the motels, fast food restaurants, bars and souvenir shops that grew up around and fed off Disneyland's success. So in the 1960s, Disney bought land near Orlando and began building Disney World, a park with enough land for Disney to own not just the rides, but the hotels, roads, eateries, lakes and transportation around it, along with all the profits. But then, in 1981, Disney's rival, Universal announces a plan of its own. A movie studio and theme park just 10 miles from Disney World's front gate. Few will think Universal can truly compete with Disney. Some will describe the idea as Diet Disney. The park people will visit once they've had their fill of the real thing. And for a long time, they'll be right. Universal will stumble, overspend and open a park so broken that critics savage it on day one. Today, however, Universal is no longer the sideshow. Against the odds, it's built itself into a real competitor with the help of Harry Potter, Super Mario, and most recently, a fourth Orlando park, Epic Universe. But to understand how Universal got here, we need to go back to the 1980s when it was the underdog, and discover how an alleged betrayal helped ignite a 35 year battle for the future of family vacations. This is episode one, A Kingdom Invaded. It's 1984, three years after Universal's presentation and Disney looks vulnerable. The parks are still valuable, but the film studio has lost its command of popular culture. Audiences want the fast thrills offered by rival studios. Blockbusters like Star Wars, ET Raiders of the Lost Ark and Beverly Hills Cop. Disney is struggling to keep up. Its executives are stuck in the past, constantly asking themselves, what would Walt have done? The public still thinks of Disney as a movie studio, but financially, the theme parks in California and Florida are carrying the company, generating around 70% of its profit. Strip away the brand and Disney is now a theme park and real estate company with a struggling film business attached. And that's made Disney a target. With its stock price low, a corporate raider named Saul Steinberg begins circling. He's a takeover artist, the kind of investor who buys enough shares to threaten control of a company, then pressures it to sell assets, restructure or pay him to go away. If he gets his way, the parks, film library and land could be broken apart and sold for quick profit. To stop this from happening, Disney's board realizes it needs new leadership. Someone aggressive, credible to Wall street, fluent in modern Hollywood and unafraid to break the company out of post. Walt caution. And that means they need someone from outside the Disney bubble, which is practically unheard of for this company. Since Walt's death in 1966, Disney has been run by insiders, loyalists, company men, even Walt's own son in law. Bringing in an outsider is an admission that its old guard is out of ideas. And the Hollywood dynamo they're about to find is one who's got a point to Prove. Michael Eisner sits beside a speakerphone, waiting to make the most important call of his life. Only days earlier, he was one of Hollywood's golden executives, the restless, commercially gifted Paramount chief who helped turn Saturday Night Fever, Grease, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Flashdance and Beverly Hills Cop into hits. He'd expected to get the top job at Paramount when chairman and CEO Barry Diller left. Instead, he was passed over, leaving him with no future at the company. The humiliation still burns in Hollywood. Power is not abstract. It's who returns your call, who accepts your lunch invitation. Eisner can feel the temperature around him changing. People are polite, but differently polite. Now. Suddenly, Dis offers him a potential lifeline. The company that once seemed untouchable is in crisis. Its board needs someone who can convince Wall street that Disney isn't just a museum of Walt's old dreams, but a company ready for the future. Sitting across from Eisner is Stanley Gold, a powerful businessman who is running the campaign to install Eisner at Disney. He's been at it for weeks, calling in every favor he has. But there's one person whose support can make this happen. Sid Bass, the Texas billionaire whose family owns the single largest stake in Disney. If Bass backs Eisner, the board will have no choice. If he doesn't, it's over. Eisner leans forward, hands close to the phone, forcing himself to slow down. He knows this isn't just a job interview. It's a rescue pitch. Disney isn't broken because people stopped loving Disney. That's not the problem. Okay, then what is the problem? It's what happens to every great creative company after the founder is gone. First, there's an entrepreneur, someone with taste, nerve, instinct. Then the founder dies or leaves, and the managers take over. Michael? Managers are important, of course. But if the company is creative, spreadsheets can't be the only currency. Managers start preserving the vision instead of extending it. Bass doesn't interject, so Eisner presses on. Look, analysts and accountants discourage change. They aren't in the business of risk. To them, new ideas look dangerous, reinvention, irresponsible. It's inevitable. Slowly, the company ossifies, ossifies, atrophies, dies. Pick your word. You think Disney's dying? I think Disney shouldn't be managed like a museum. The brand is alive. The parks are extraordinary. But in a creative business, you have to take chances. Otherwise, nothing new can happen and you become a relic. Bass remains silent. Eisner can feel his future narrowing to this moment. If you only want someone to run the company by the numbers. I understand. Don't hire me. But if you want someone who can help write a new chapter. Yeah, you're right. We're with you. Eisner leans back in his chair and silently exhales. While Disney has been looking for a new chairman, Universal has been struggling to make the leap from plan to action with their movie studio theme park. Universal's parent company, mca, is desperate to reduce its exposure to the highs and lows of show business. Movies are expensive and unpredictable. A hit can transform a year, but a flop can wreck one. MCA's chairman, Les Wasserman, wants stability, but right now he doesn't have it. The company's movie studio depends on blockbusters, its music division on hit records, its TV productions, on having peace with the unions. None of this is guaranteed. But theme parks. Theme parks promise a solution. Universal's Hollywood studio tour is already generating roughly $50 million a year in revenue. It's not Disney money, sure, but it's real. And compared to the unpredictability of the movie hits, it's dependable. Even so, Wasserman is uneasy. The logic of opening a new theme park in Orlando is sound. Disney has already trained millions of families to think of it as the place where an American vacation happens. Universal doesn't have to create the market from scratch. It can build nearby and catch the tourists as they pass through. But sound logic is and a 200 million dollar commitment are two different things. For Sydney Sheinberg, the executive who hosted that confidential presentation three years earlier, the Florida park is more than a copycat attraction. His vision is bigger than rides. Universal Studios Florida will let visitors watch movies being made. And the park won't just earn income from tourists buying tickets. It'll also make money from film and TV production companies renting the sound stages and backlot space inside it. A theme park and working studio all in one. That's what makes this idea genuinely innovative. It's also what's driving the cost up. The more backlot sets, shows, soundstages and production facilities Universal adds to its plans, the higher the price climbs. What began as a $100 million idea is now approaching 200 million. Even for a major Hollywood studio, these are unnerving sums. And Universal doesn't want to shoulder the entire burden alone. It's already bought the land, developed the concept and the business plan. What it needs now is a partner, someone willing to share the cost and the risk. But until it finds that someone, progress on the park will stall, giving Disney more time to get its house in order. On Monday, September 24, 1984, 42 year old Michael Eisner drives onto the Disney lot in Burbank, California. Two days ago, Disney's board crowned him the new chairman and chief executive of the Magic Kingdom. Now he needs to deliver on the innovation. He sold them. But first he has to get to his office. He pulls up to the studio gate and realizes he has no idea where to go. The appointment happened so quickly that no one told him where his office is. He rolls down the window of his car. Hi there. I'm Michael Eisner. The security guard looks at him blankly. Yes, sir, I work here. The bewildered guard calls someone to collect the new boss and deliver him to his new office. Inside is Walt Disney's old leather chair. It feels like he's entered a museum. Eisner sits down apprehensively. Then Frank Wells walks in. Wells is 52, tall, polished, lawyerly and reassuringly composed. He's also new. The Disney board brought him in alongside Eisner as president and chief operating officer. The steady business partner to Eisner's creative charge. Wells is older, calmer, and at this point, almost a stranger. Their partnership was assembled quickly, in the middle of a corporate crisis. Eisner has the top job, and Wells agreed to be his number two. But neither man knows yet whether this arranged marriage will work. Wells sits down opposite Eisner. Eisner waits. Wells doesn't move. Finally, Eisner breaks the silence. Are we just gonna sit here together? Wells shrugs. I thought we would share this office. What if I need to make a private phone call? I can step outside, but I doubt there's much you'll need to keep from me. It's a comic, awkward beginning, but it also hints at what Disney needs. Eisner is restless and impulsive, hungry to remake the company. Wells is steady and analytical, calm enough to sit in silence. If Eisner is going to push Disney out of its post, Walt caution he'll need Wells to keep the machinery from shaking apart. Outside Walt's office, the problems are urgent. Disney's parks are still profitable, but they're aging. And Universal's rival Park is getting closer to reality every day. If Eisner and Wells are going to fix Disney, they'll need to be ready to defend its most valuable asset.
- [20:00]
Raza Jaffrey
I'm Raza Jaffrey, and in the new season of the Spy who we open the file on Benedict Arnold, the spy who betrayed the American Revolution. America is fighting to free itself from the British Empire and one of its foremost generals is Benedict Arnold. He's a smuggler turned battlefield hero and admired for his aggressive tactics. But when a war wound, a new wife, debts and politics test his loyalty to the mags, he turns spy and devises a plot to shatter the revolution and help Britain capture rebel commander in chief General George Washington. And that plot would make him the most infamous traitor in U.S. history. Follow the Spy who Now Wherever you listen to podcasts, you can also listen to the full season of the Spy who Betrayed the American Revolution. Early and ad free Unaudable.
- [21:01]
Michelle Obama
As Americans, we're constantly grappling with a fundamental do we settle for the world as it is, or do we strive to create the world as it should be? Our answers tend to ebb and flow through the decades, but once, just after a war that nearly tore us apart, we came as close as we've come to answering it. And it's a story worth a closer look. I'm Michelle Obama and I'm proud to announce Higher Ground's new podcast, the Unfinished Promise. Guided by best selling author Malcolm Gladwell and featuring my husband, Barack Obama, this limited series uncovers the untold stories of reconstruction, what they mean for us today, and how our past can shape the future we choose to build. Reconstruction the Unfinished Promise is available now on Audible or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [22:14]
David Brown
It's 1984, and Michael Eisner is standing on Main Street, USA inside Disney World. Ahead of him, the Cinderella Castle rises, pale and theatrical against the Florida sky. Around him, the street looks like an idealized American town. Red brick facades, striped awnings, gas lamps, flower boxes, polished windows, horse drawn trolleys, and the smell of popcorn and sugar drifting from handcarts piped in. Music seems to come from nowhere and everywhere. All at once. Families move toward the castle as if pulled by gravity. Everything is immaculate. The paint is fresh, the flower beds are exact. Even the clean, cream colored trash cans look like part of the fantasy. This is Disney's genius, a world scrubbed clean of grime and friction. But Eisner feels completely out of place. He arrived from Paramount brimming with confidence about how to make great movies and television. Theme parks are out of his comfort zone. He never visited Disneyland as a child, but he knows that inside Disney the parks are sacred ground, a place of pilgrimage for those who have chosen to make Disney, if not their religion, then their identity. He's been told that Disney executives are expected to honor Walt's old ritual of picking up any litter they see. He feels watched. God forbid, he thinks, if I miss a candy wrapper Eisner spots a piece of paper on the ground and darts toward it, eager to show he understands the rules. A moment later, he sees another scrap, then another. He assumes the root has been prepared for his visit. Flowers replaced, grass cut, sidewalks repaired and facades painted. So he begins to wonder, has the litter been planted as a test? Whether or not it has, he keeps picking it up. Now, this may sound a little like insecurity on Eisner's part, but he's smarter than that. He's showing that he gets it. Disney's not just selling rides, it's selling standards. And those standards get enforced socially before they ever need to be enforced formally. You know, when your culture is doing the work of management, the customer feels the difference. If you've ever been to Six Flags, you know what I'm talking about here. And millions are willing to pay extra for that difference, too. But while the park intimidates Eisner, his visit to Walt Disney Imagineering later that day seduces him. The Imagineers are Disney's handpicked creative team, the studio's animators, directors, writers, artists and set designers who design Disney World and continue to develop its attractions. The group is headed by Marty Sklar. His years spent working as a former publicist for Waldo have given him mythical status within the company. Sklar shows Eisner and Wells the archives, including early plans for Disney World and models of attractions that never made it beyond the drawing board. Then he shows them a scale model for a new $80 million water ride where guests will ride logs down a hurtling flume before sending them over a final stomach lifting drop. It's the kind of attraction that could inject a sense of speed and danger into Disney's aging park formula, bringing it more in line with rival amusement parks across the country without breaking the family spell. A real thrill ride, but wrapped in music, characters and story. Eisner stares at the model ride and immediately sees a way forward. Disney doesn't have to choose between Walt's old standards and modern thrills. It can do both. It can keep the emotional machinery of Disney intact while making the parks feel more contemporary. And it's a vision that aligns almost exactly with the one Universal presented on its lot three years earlier. While Eisner settles in at Disney, Universal president Sydney Sheinberg continues looking for a partner to help find fund the construction of Universal Studios Florida. In the three years since Universal announced its plans, its parent company, MCA, has spent $13 million buying more than 400 acres of land in Orlando. Yet its attempts to secure A co investor are going nowhere. Potential partners keep asking the obvious question. If Universal's Florida park is such a surefire bet, why does MCA want someone else to help pay for it? Paramount passes. So does rca, then a major owner of NBC. Taft Entertainment, a broadcasting and amusement park company, also passes. So does Lorimar, the television production company behind hits like Dallas. Even the wealthy Bass brothers of Texas say no, thanks. But then Sheinberg has a brainwave. Why not? Ask the new chairman of Disney, Michael Eisner. They're competitors, but they also belong to the same small circle of executives who take each other's calls, share projects, sometimes do business together. Sheinberg knows Eisner. He trusts him, or at least thinks he does. And now Eisner is running the one company MCA needs most in Florida. Disney has the land, the tourists, the hotels, the infrastructure and the financing. Universal has the studio tour expertise. Together, Sheinberg thinks they could build the definitive Hollywood park, an attraction that combines Disney's vacation empire with Universal's movie making glamour. So shortly after Eisner takes over as chairman, Sheinberg writes to him and to Frank Wells asking for a meeting. It doesn't take long for Eisner's reply to arrive. He refuses to meet. In his message, he explains that Disney is considering building its own studio tour and doesn't want to be accused of stealing down the line. Sheinberg is stunned. Not only has he just lost another potential partner, Eisner has revealed that Disney may be moving into the exact space Universal has spent years trying to claim. Universal Studios Florida's whole selling point is that it's different from Disney. This distinction is what will persuade investors to back it and tourists to visit it. Now Disney is threatening to take that distinction away. Something seems off. Sheinberg's mind returns to that presentation on the Universal lot a few years earlier. The darkened room, the slide projector, the executives watching Universal's plans click across the wall. And there on the meeting agenda was a name that now matters more than any other. Michael eisner.
- [29:46]
Raza Jaffrey
Foreign.
- [29:49]
David Brown
It's February 1985, four months since Michael Eisner took the helm at Disney, and he's meeting with Disney stockholders for the first time. What Eisner had hinted at privately to Sheinberg, he now declares publicly. Disney will build a movie studio tour in Florida, Eisner explains. The company will construct some soundstages and a studio tour on its vast Disney World property. It will become the park's third gated attraction beside the Magic Kingdom and Epcot, which opened in 1982, Eisner frames the project as practical, even necessary. Disney is ramping up movie and television production, but its lot in Burbank, California, only has four sound stages. For Universal, the announcement is explosive. Eisner is describing the exact kind of hybrid attraction MCA has been trying to finance. When reporters ask how Disney's plan is different from Universal's current studio tour, Eisner draws the distinction carefully. Disney will build new facilities designed for spectators from the start, including an area where visitors can watch Disney animators painting and inking on site. Sheinberg wrestles with what to do. The choice is grim. Universal could sell the land it bought in Florida and retreat to Hollywood. Or it could counterattack. But Sheinberg is fired up. Waving the white flag is not an option, and his colleagues at MCA agree, especially Lou Wasserman, a fiercely competitive businessman who tells Sheinberg they need to teach Eisner a lesson. Disney's announcement turns Universal's stalled theme park project into a corporate crusade. But Universal can't compete with Disney's plans by building a modest east coast copy of its Hollywood tour. It needs something bigger and more aggressive. Working film sets won't be enough. They need extravagant rides and attractions, too. So Universal revises its original plan. It adds attractions, shows, expanded streets and restaurants. The project, already ballooning beyond its original budget, is now projected to cost almost $300 million. But to truly outshine the House of the Mouse, Universal needs a headline grabbing attraction. And Universal has something Disney does not. Steven Spielberg. The most famous film director in the world, Spielberg is a part of the Universal family. He's been with the studio since the start of his career. His movie Jaws created the modern summer blockbuster E.T. became a cultural phenomenon. His films offer exactly what Universal needs. Danger, wonder, spectacle and characters with enough popularity to take on Mickey Mouse. In May 1985, Sheinberg announces that Spielberg has a financial interest in Universal Studios Florida and will serve as its creative consultant. Spielberg's involvement gives the park glamour, credibility and most importantly, hit movies. It helps push Universal toward a new identity. Not just see how movies are made, but ride the movies. But the world's most famous director comes at a significant cost. To get his seal of approval, Universal has promised him 2% of the gross revenues from the park, including tickets and and concession sales in perpetuity. It's a slice estimated to be worth $20 million a year. It's expensive, but for Universal, it's worth it. Disney has Walt's characters, Walt's land and Walt's Kingdom. But now Universal Has Spielberg an asset that might just be enough to beat Disney at its own game. It's the summer of 1987 and the theme park war is spreading beyond Florida. With Universal pressing ahead with plans to construct a rival theme park in Orlando. Disney fires back. The company announces plans to open a retail and entertainment complex in Burbank, threatening the appeal of Universal's original Hollywood studio tour. Michael Eisner's message to Universal is clear. You come for us in Florida and we're coming for you in la. MCA hits back. It helps fund a citizens group called Friends of Burbank to campaign against Disney's plan and files lawsuits accusing the city of giving Disney special treatment. But both sides can see where this is headed. A two front war in Florida and Los Angeles. Theme parks and city hall showdowns, publicity stunts and high profile lawsuits. All of which could get expensive fast. So hoping to de escalate, the heads of the two companies agree to meet. It's summer 1987, and in Los Angeles, Eisner and Universal's president, Sydney Sheinberg sit across from each other in a private meeting room. These two Hollywood power players were once on friendly terms. Now they're weighing whether to spend hundreds of millions of dollars going to war with each other. The mood is cool and formal, but the underlying friction is obvious. Sheinberg believes Universal shared its books and plans in confidence. Eisner believes Disney has every right to defend Disney World. Each man thinks the other is the aggressor. At first, the conversation is framed as practical. Both companies are building movie studio attractions in Orlando. Does it really make sense to have two of them 10 miles apart? Could the projects be combined? Somehow, Eisner feels he's coming from a position of strength. Disney has the land, the hotels, the roads, the guests and the existing vacation empire. He acknowledges that Universal has expertise in studio tours and. But he refuses to give Universal any meaningful control of an attraction inside Disney's kingdom. The negotiation begins to crack. To Universal, what Disney is proposing is essentially a royalty. Universal would be compensated for its contribution, but it wouldn't be an active partner in running the combined attraction. Eisner thinks this is a clean settlement. Disney keeps operational control, Universal gets paid. The and both sides avoid a costly fight. But to Sheinberg, this offer is a humiliation disguised as a concession. A royalty turns Universal Studio Tour expertise. The business he believes Disney copied into a line item on someone else's balance sheet. The talks grow heated. Soon the two men aren't arguing over one attraction anymore. They're arguing over who calls the shots in Orlando. Neither man will budge. Eisner will not give Universal an equal seat inside Disney's kingdom. Sheinberg will not accept a payoff to disappear. The talks collapse. You know, there was probably a deal here, maybe even a good one. But deals don't just run on logic. They run on pride. Who's in charge? Who gets credit? Who's calling the shots? And when. Neither side is willing to give on that, things fall apart fast. And when they do, the alternative is usually more expensive. Both sides go it alone and try to beat each other instead. Pride doesn't have a price tag, but it can cost a business millions and sometimes a lot more. The last chance for a shared Hollywood park in Orlando is gone. The rivalry hardens from a business dispute into a personal war. It's April 1989. Two years later, and after years of announcements and posturing, Disney MGM Studios opens, becoming the first theme park to bring the studio tour experience to central Florida. Universal is furious. With its own park still under construction, the company breaks its silence and publicly accuses Disney of stealing its idea. Universal shows journalists the confidential Florida plans it created back in 1981. The slides, blueprints and renderings, street layouts, attraction concepts.
- [39:28]
Jay Stein
Concepts.
- [39:28]
David Brown
Its claim is explosive. Disney didn't just build a rival studio park. It built one with striking similarities to Universal's own plans. The stakes for both companies are enormous. Between them, Disney and Universal are now spending roughly a billion dollars in Florida on their respective studio tour attractions. J. Stein is Universal's chief theme park executive, the man responsible for Universal Studio Tours who is now charged with getting Universal Studios Florida open. Stein says Disney's move forced Universal to rethink its own park at a cost of tens of millions of dollars. He claims that as much as 70% of Disney's tour is borrowed from Universal's 1981 concept. To make his case, he points to Disney MGM Studios new ride Catastrophe Canyon. The ride puts visitors on a tram caught in a disaster sequence. Ground tremors, a falling power pole, a collapsing bridge explosions, an oil tank fireball. And finally, a wall of water rushing toward the vehicle. To Universal, it's almost identical to its planned Hollywood Canyon, one of the attractions revealed at the 1981 presentation. Tremors shaking the tram, power line snapping, a dam breaking, water pouring down the hillside, a bridge collapse and an oil field explosion. Disney argues that Catastrophe Canyon is an original attraction created by its imagineers. Universal, one executive says, is just jealous. August 1989, four months after Disney, MGM Studios opens at a daycare center in Hallandale in South Florida. Artists are painting over Mickey Mouse. Brushes move across the wall. Inside, the black ears disappear first, then the red shorts. Nearby, Pluto, Snow White and other Disney characters begin vanishing under fresh paint as children watch wide eyed from the floor. This daycare center is one of three in Hallandale that have been ordered to remove unauthorized murals of Disney characters. Legally, Disney is in the right. It must protect its copyrights and it does not want Mickey or Snow White implying approval of a facility Disney has neither inspected nor endorsed. But legal justification doesn't always mean victory in the court of public opinion, and that gives Universal an opening. After hearing how Disney's attorneys clamped down on these daycare centers, Universal has sent in artists to replace Disney's characters with its own animation stars. Woody Woodpecker, Fred Flintstone, George Jetson and other Hanna Barbera favorites. The children cheer as the new characters appear. The stunt is funny, almost petty, but the hostility that underpins it is real. To help its image in the theme park war, Universal is trying to puncture Disney's aura of innocence. In Disney's telling, Mickey Mouse represents joy, childhood, family magic. In Universal's telling, Mickey is now a corporate enforcer bullying daycare centers over nursery wall cartoons designed to bring joy to children. Outside the building, the cameras are waiting. What might have been an unnoticed copyright warning is now a PR victory. Universal stunt ends with the mayor of Hallandale announcing that he is canceling his membership in the Mick Mouse Club. Then, borrowing the slogan of one of the new characters on the wall, he sends Universal home with a triumphant shout. Yabba dabba doo. Universal turned a quiet legal move by Disney into a public moment with cameras, kids and cartoon characters. Suddenly, it's not about copyright law. It's about who looks like the good guy. That kind of move doesn't cost very much, but it can shift how people feel about a brand. And once a villain narrative takes hold, well, it's hard to shake. But Universal's sense of triumph won't last long. It's June 7, 1990, and after nearly a decade of buildup, Universal Studios Florida is finally open and the public reaction is mixed.
- [44:14]
Jay Stein
Well, it's been both a day of excitement and disappointment. And excitement from the parade of showbiz stars. All the activity hoopla surrounding the grand opening of this $630 million extravaganza. Disappointment because there's a lot of technical problems.
- [44:30]
David Brown
The park opens with Steven Spielberg cutting the ceremonial film strip ribbon and the gates swing open to reveal a line of movie legends, business leaders, politicians and Visitors inside, they find a park designed for teenagers and movie buffs. People who have largely aged out of Disney and directors are already preparing to shoot movies there with Edward Scissorhands first in line. But behind the ceremony, the people who built the park know the truth. The construction and testing schedule have been brutal and many of the ride systems have been rushed. The attractions aren't ready. And under the 91 degree Florida sun, the illusion begins to crack.
- [45:13]
Narrator
Despite the shows going on and back and all the other fun, not all is well in La La Land East. Here, the stars may be having a great time in the park today, getting the VIP treatment. But some of the other first day guests wish they'd never come.
- [45:26]
Jay Stein
We understand three of the four major attractions have been closed all morning. And confrontation. The showcase attraction won't be open at all today.
- [45:35]
David Brown
Rides fail, effects misfire, lines build. Angry visitors start demanding their money back. Universal has spent years promising Hollywood spectacle, but instead it's delivering breakdowns, long lines and apologies. Then president Sidney Sheinberg boards Jaws, a water based ride based on Spielberg's groundbreaking film. On the boat with him are his wife and the ride's designer, Bob Ward. The boat moves out into the lagoon. The Jaws ride should be a showcase of what makes Universal's park different. Danger and spectacle as a mechanical great white shark lunges from the water. But instead the boat thuds to a standstill somewhere backstage. The machinery fails. The shark never appears. The executive who fought to bring Universal to Florida is left stranded in the lagoon, fuming inside his own blockbuster. After half an hour in the boiling heat, a rowboat is sent to rescue the boss. Universal's war with Disney has begun in humiliation. In the days after opening, the bad news keeps coming. Reviews are brutal. The park becomes a punchline. Universal has spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars trying to prove it can challenge Disney. Now its first Florida park looks unfinished, unreliable, maybe even doomed. This is the nightmare scenario. Opening day and the product just doesn't work. All the marketing people in the world can't save a company in that moment. People remember how something felt when they first experienced it. And if that feeling is frustration, it sticks. They'll tell others too big, complicated ideas are exciting, at least on the drawing board. But they're often the weakest link in your big debut. And when you go live too soon, well, inevitably the cracks show. Not long after this disastrous opening, Universal's theme park boss, Jay Stein gathers several members of his team behind closed doors for a meeting to address the Florida park's dismal debut. The room expects blood. After the broken rides, the stranded boss, the refunds and the terrible press, no one knows whether Stein is about to fire everyone, delay attractions, scale back, or admit that the Disney fight has been a mistake. Instead, he calmly pins a map of Disneyland to the wall. Universal has technically opened its first Florida gate, the industry term for a separately ticketed park. But Stein tells the room they should think of it differently. The park they just opened isn't the real flagship. The next one will be. Its code name is Project X, and it will be Universal's true answer to Disneyland, a destination built around immersive lands, fantasy adventure and world class characters. It will have faster, more dazzling rides strong enough to lure visitors away from Disney World. Stein's target is audacious 12 million visitors a year, roughly the same as the number currently going to Disney's Magic Kingdom. Universal has already spent more than $600 million, but it's not backing off yet. The first Universal park in Florida was born from anger at Disney's apparent betrayal. This one will be born from humiliation. Universal wants to build a Disney killer, but it still hasn't proved it can run the park it already has. Follow Business wars on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of Business wars ad free by joining Audible from Audible Originals. This is Episode one of Universal versus Disney the Battle for Orlando for Business Wars. A quick note about recreations you've been hearing. In most cases, we can't know exactly what was said. Those scenes are dramatizations, but they are based on research. The rivalry between Disney and Universal is just one chapter in Michael Eisner's turbulent reign. And for the full inside story, listen to the audiobook version of Disney War, available now on Audible. We also recommend work in progress by Michael Eisner. If you enjoyed this story, we think you'll also love our season on Disney Pixar vs DreamWorks, the War for animated supremacy that produced some of the biggest films of all time. And for more on the internal power struggles that nearly tore Disney apart, check out our season, Disney Under Siege. I'm your host David Brown. Simon Parkin of Yellowant wrote this story. Our senior producers are Jenny Bloom and Emily Frost. Our producer is Tristan Donovan of Yellow Ant. Karen Lowe is our producer emeritus. Our managing producer is Desi Blalock. Research by Marina Watson Fact checking by Stephanie Power Sound design by Kyle Randall executive producer for Audible Jenny Lauer Beckman, head of creative development at Audible Kate Maven, head of Audible Originals North America Marshall Louie Chief Content Officer Rachel Gyazza Copyright 2026 by Audible Originals, LLC. Sound recording Copyright 2026 by Audible Original.