One of Hollywood's largest movie studios starred in a disastrous sequel as a fire ripped through a lot at Universal Studios, destroying a set from Back to the Future, a King Kong exhibit and a streetscape seen frequently in movies and TV shows.
It was the second fire at the historic site in nearly two decades, leveling facades, hollowing out buildings and creating the kind of catastrophe filmmakers relish re-creating. This time around, thousands of videos chronicling Universal’s movie and TV shows were destroyed in Sunday’s blaze.
But Universal officials said that they were thankful no visitors were seriously injured — though several firefighters suffered minor injuries — and that the damaged footage can be replaced.
PHOTO: AP
“We have duplicates of everything,” said Ron Meyer, NBC Universal president and chief operating officer. “Nothing is lost forever.”
The blaze broke out on a sound stage featuring New York brownstone facades around 4:30am on Sunday at the 162-hectare property, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Michael Freeman said. The fire was contained to the lot but burned for more than 12 hours before the final flames were extinguished.
The cause of the fire is under investigation. Damage was expected to be in the millions of dollars.
The iconic courthouse square from Back to the Future was destroyed, and the famous clock tower that enabled Michael J. Fox’s character to travel through time was damaged, fire officials said.
Two mock New York and New England streets used both for movie-making and as tourist displays were a total loss, Los Angeles County Fire Inspector Darryl Jacobs said.
An exhibit housing a mechanically animated King Kong that bellows at visitors on a tram also was destroyed.
All three sites were either damaged or destroyed during another fire at Universal Studios in November 1990. That fire caused US$25 million in damage and was started by a security guard who was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to arson.
Hundreds of visitors who had waited for hours outside the park gates were turned away after officials decided not to open the area.
On a typical weekend day, about 25,000 people visit Universal Studios. An NBC Universal statement said the park was to reopen yesterday morning.
Universal CityWalk, a shopping promenade, was also closed. The MTV Movie Awards, broadcasting live on Sunday night from the adjacent Gibson Amphitheater, went on as planned.
The fire broke out along New York Street, where firefighting helicopters swept in for drops and cranes dumped water on the flames. A thick column of smoke rose thousands of meters into the air and could be seen for kilometers.
“It looked like a disaster film,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
RSS