Warner Bros Movie World Gold Coast: 30 years since theme park’s opening day
Some of Hollywood’s biggest stars arrived on the Gold Coast for the opening of Warner Bros Movie World. This is the amazing true story of the day it opened. SEE THE FULL STORY AND GALLERY
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THE Gold Coast has been Australia’s theme park capital for nearly 50 years, a reputation that continues to grow with the roll out of new attractions and diverse offerings.
Our city’s biggest parks are in a frenzy of activity as they unveil a laundry list of attractions designed to bring visitors back after a disastrous 2020 and gain an edge for the post-Covid world.
Warner Bros Movie World at Oxenford will next week celebrate 30 years with a new “Hooray for Hollywood” parade as well as showing off props from previous productions.
A new hotel at the site is also in the early planning stages.
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Planning for the park itself began in the late 1980s following the opening of the neighbouring Cades County Water Park, later renamed Wet’n’Wild.
Dreamworld had been operating for a decade, while Sea World had chalked up 20 years.
With Magic Mountain gone, the market had room for a new attraction.
Warner Bros Movie World opened on June 3, 1991.
The $120 million theme park was built in the late 1980s and featured a fully operational movie studio and rides and was expected to take around 12,000 people a day.
But before the Oxenford project, originally 167ha in size, opened, a celebrity-filled opening was planned.
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Leading the charge was Hollywood superstar Clint Eastwood who arrived right in time to celebrate his 61st birthday with a cruise on the Broadwater aboard a luxury catamaran.
No expense was spared for the 40-odd guests that included Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Mel Gibson and his wife Robyn, Yahoo Serious and American film moguls from the Warner Bros Studios.
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Eastwood was greeted by long-time fan and restaurateur Robyn Horley who gave Eastwood a bottle of champagne. He rewarded her with a kiss.
Eastwood’s party boated to Stradbroke Island and back again.
The veteran star blew out the candles on a giant birthday cake of chocolate and custard filled with raspberries and strawberries and a peppermint top which simply read “Happy Birthday Clint’’.
On the night before the opening, Darryl Somers and the Hey Hey It’s Saturday crew took over the new theme park and interviewed several of the stars.
To coincide with the launch, the Today show, with Steve Leibmann and Liz Hayes, was telecast live from the park, as was The Bugs Bunny Show hosted by Sophie Lee.
The man responsible for stage-managing the launch was former Sea World managing director John Menzies who was confident the park would be a success despite the recession gripping Australia at the time.
“We have a feeling of excitement and nervous anticipation, given that most show business people have last-minute jitters,’’ he said.
“But it is very exciting coming down to the wire.’’
“In this increasingly hectic world, movies are our main means of escape and fantasy.
“They give us glamour, keep us on the edge of our seats, or make us laugh until we cry.”
At the opening, Premier Wayne Goss said it would be impossible to calculate the economic benefits the park would generate for Queensland.
He said the production of five feature films and three major television series there had already injected $100 million into the state’s economy.
Mr Goss joined Eastwood and Bugs Bunny in cutting the ribbon and officially opening the park.
Warner Brothers executives told more than 5000 invited guests that the Gold Coast would become one of the movie-making capitals of the world.
“This is as up-to-date as any studio anywhere in the world,” Warner Brothers president Terry Semel said.
Other stars to attend the opening were Australian actors Nick Carrafa and Fiona Corke.
The initial expectation was for 12,000 people a day to visit the park, something which soon was exceeded.
Terry Jackman was on the board of Village Roadshow and was the owner of the land where the park was built and remembered the launch fondly.
“It has been a great attraction for the Coast and the opening day was exciting,” he told the Bulletin in 2016.
“I played a game of golf with Clint Eastwood which was a lot of fun.
“The opening with all the stars was great, they were all nice people.”
Pre-Covid, the park annually received around 1.4 million visitors.
Now, with new attractions in the works, park bosses will be counting on silver screen magic.
Originally published as Warner Bros Movie World Gold Coast: 30 years since theme park’s opening day
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