A fire has hit Hollywood’s Universal Studios, damaging movie sets, the company’s video vaults and several backlots including the set for Back to the Future.
A fire has hit Hollywood’s Universal Studios, damaging exhibits, video vaults and movie sets including the set for Back to the Future.
More than 400 firefighters were called out to the site of the blaze, with the force of the fire centred on the King Kong exhibit.
Several of the studios key exhibits have been lost, five structures within the New York exhibit including one soundstage have been devastated by the fire.
The iconic courthouse square from Back to the Future was also destroyed and the famous clock tower that enabled star Michael J. Fox’s character to travel through time was also damaged.
A Universal spokeswoman said about 40,000 to 50,000 videos had been damaged but the studios either had copies of those films or could easily copy them.
The contents of a second vault holding master copies of older and classic movies were salvaged.
“Nothing irreplaceable was lost,” said Ron Meyer, Universal Studios’ president and chief operating officer.
The studio said the full monetary damage had not yet been fully assessed.
Check out this raw footage from the scene
