Universal Studios

ONCE upon a time, high above the Hollywood Freeway and the Lane of Lankershim, lived a little tourist attraction called the Universal Studios Tour, which amazed visitors from near and far with its tales of movie magic. Trams of blue transported wide-eyed wanderers through the studio backlot past film landmarks such as the "Psycho" house, through the parting Red Sea inspired by "The Ten Commandments" and to Lucille Ball's dressing room.

Having cast a spell in Orlando and planted his flag in Los Angeles, Harry Potter is now taking his theme park magic across the Pacific. Universal Studios Japan on Thursday will unveil plans to build the first international version of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, the blockbuster attraction that has drawn millions of fans to Universal's Orlando resort and is expected to do the same at a planned Hollywood location. The Osaka destination, which will begin construction in the next few weeks with a planned opening in late 2014, is the latest in a series of expansions underway at major parks around the world that has followed an uptick in attendance, particularly in Asia.

The 4-acre portion of the Universal Studios back lot that was destroyed by fire last June is being rebuilt and will be open for business by midsummer, the company said Tuesday. In Universal's case, "business" means both shooting movies and having tourists drive by as part of the Hollywood Studio Tour. The studio said it was rebuilding its Courthouse Square, Brownstone Street and New York Street sets and would be introducing several new sets, including a London Street, a firehouse and a contemporary cityscape.

Film can be an unstable environment - and not just in the executive suites. Take for example the 1973 Oscar-winning best film "The Sting,"which had chemical stains over several frames in the original negative. Steven Spielberg's landmark 1975 shark thriller "Jaws" showed the ravages of time with nasty tears in the original negative, notably the scene in which Quint (Robert Shaw) arrives at the town meeting on Amity Island. These are some of the challenges facing technicians performing digital restorations of 13 classic movies as part of Universal Studios' 100th birthday celebration.

IT'S been decades since movie studios had movie stars on contract. And you're as likely to stumble across movie filming on a downtown L.A. street as on the Universal Studios back lot these days. But the studios still have that special feel of a gated village of the privileged, sprinkled with producers' personal parking spaces, dotted with streets named for directors and stars and charged with a frisson of excitement.

The San Fernando Valley is 260 square miles of suburbia. Actually, make that suburbia on nutritional supplements. And antidepressants. With perhaps a little cosmetic surgery south of Ventura Boulevard, where the big money is. Or maybe - now that it's grown to more than 1.7 million people in nearly three dozen cities and neighborhoods rich and poor - the Valley isn't even a suburb anymore. It begins just 10 miles northwest of Los Angeles City Hall, sprawling west to the Simi Hills, north to the Santa Susana Mountains, and east to the Verdugo and San Gabriel mountains.

Cable giant Comcast Corp. isn't changing the channel at Universal Studios. Universal President Ron Meyer has signed a new contract with his bosses at Comcast that will extend his tenure until December, 2015. His previous deal had been set to expire at the end of 2012. The extension is a vote of confidence by Comcast, which acquired the studio's parent company, NBCUniversal, in January. Many people in Hollywood had speculated that the new owner might seek to make a management change at Universal given the poor performance of its movie division over the last two years with a string of costly flops such as "Land of the Lost" and "The Wolfman.

In his first major public appearance in Los Angeles in more than three years, the Dalai Lama spoke to a crowd of several thousand people Sunday about his hopes for Tibet, the need for dialogue in resolving conflicts and the importance of spurning the material world to cultivate compassion. People today are "too much concerned with exterior material values and not our inner values," the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader said. Happiness, he said, touching his heart, "ultimately depends on here."

Comcast Corp. has made an offer to renew the contract of longtime Universal Studios chief Ron Meyer -- a potential vote of confidence that could quell speculation in Hollywood that his days in the job are numbered under the cable giant's new ownership. But the two sides have yet to reach an agreement. A key sticking point in the negotiations is how long Meyer's contract will be extended beyond its current expiration in 2012. Comcast was offering a shorter extension than the executive would like, according to a person familiar with the matter who requested anonymity because of the confidentiality of the talks.

This Halloween season, for the first time, Universal Studios Hollywood introduced a character based on the Latin American myth of La Llorona in its annual Halloween Horror Nights in an effort to connect with Southern California's sizable Latino population. The legend of La Llorona has gone through many variations over the years. It is a folktale about a woman who drowned her children after she was abandoned by their father. Tormented by what she has done, the woman's spirit wanders the earth, crying out for her dead children.

The new knock 'em, sock 'em Transformers ride at Universal Studios Hollywood is an immersive, in-your-face experience that ranks among the top theme park attractions in the world. PHOTOS: Behind-the-scene tour of Transformers ride The Transformers 3-D ride is now in technical rehearsal mode at the movie theme park, meaning the ride can open or close at any time in advance of the May 25 grand opening. I got my first ride on the new attraction over the weekend and found myself only slightly let down from my astronomically high expectations.

I took a behind-the-scenes tour Friday of the new Transformers ride opening in a few weeks at Universal Studios Hollywood. PHOTOS: Behind-the-scenes tour of Transformers ride For those of you who have never experienced Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey or the rebooted Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man at Florida's Universal Orlando (or traveled to Universal Studios Singapore where Transformers opened in December), you're in for a real treat when the new motion-simulator dark ride with high-definition 3-D images officially debuts on May 25. For the better part of a decade, the Spider-Man ride was widely considered the best theme park attraction in the world, until the Wizarding World of Harry Potter came along and the Forbidden Journey reset the bar for attraction supremacy.

The latest expansion of Disney's California Adventure, the new Cars Land attraction, is set to open June 15, Disney officials said Friday, as the park offered a peek at one of the biggest attractions featured in the $1-billion expansion. The 12-acre Cars Land, featuring the characters from the Disney-Pixar film "Cars," will open with several new restaurants and three rides, including Mater's Junkyard Jamboree, Luigi's Flying Tires and Radiator Springs Racers. The most elaborate and anticipated attraction is Radiator Springs Racers, in which small, convertible cars carry passengers around realistic-looking buttes and canyons.

Training camps regularly prepare football players for their roles on the field, so why not one to help them prepare for their post-gridiron roles — in this case, a career in Hollywood? That's the idea behind the inaugural NFL Hollywood Boot Camp that kicks off (so to speak) Monday on the back lots of Universal Studios. Born out of a meeting between Film Life Chief Executive Jeff Friday and Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs, the new program is funded by the Player Engagement division of the NFL, an educational arm that also offers programs in broadcasting, business and music for current and former NFL players.

First published on April 24, 2011. Revised and expanded in January 2012. The San Fernando Valley is 260 square miles of suburbia. Actually, make that suburbia on nutritional supplements. And antidepressants. With perhaps a little cosmetic surgery south of Ventura Boulevard, where the big money is. Or maybe -- now that it's grown to more than 1.7 million people in nearly three dozen cities and neighborhoods rich and poor - the Valley isn't even a suburb anymore. It begins just 10 miles northwest of Los Angeles City Hall, sprawling west to the Simi Hills, north to the Santa Susana Mountains and east to the Verdugo and San Gabriel mountains.

Real Madrid plans to open a $1 billion soccer-centric theme park on a United Arab Emirates man-made island in January 2015 that celebrates the history, triumphs and hubris of the richest football club in the world. PHOTOS: Real Madrid Resort Island in the Middle East The 100-acre Real Madrid Resort Island  will feature a roller coaster that extends out over the water, a SeaWorld-style dolphin show and a hologram soccer movie inside a climate-controlled theme park.

Universal Studios Hollywood has quietly raised the price of admission by $2 to $47 after a similar increase this month at Walt Disney Co. theme parks in Anaheim. The price increases at Universal and the two Disney parks -- Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure -- come as the two theme park companies are reinvesting in attractions and gearing up for stronger attendance in coming months. Universal, a unit of Vivendi Universal, raised the admission price five days after Disney's move.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky shot a torpedo at NBCUniversal's $3-billion "Evolution Plan," saying he opposes the company's proposal to build housing on part of its famous back lot in Universal City. The supervisor asked Universal Studios President Ron Meyer in a letter to abandon plans to develop nearly 3,000 condominiums and apartments at the east end of the studio's property. Yaroslavsky's district includes Universal City. The addition of such housing would have "considerable downside to Universal and to our local economy," Yaroslavsky said in the letter, dated Tuesday.

Plans to build a $750-million office and broadcast studio complex across the street from Universal Studios have been scrapped as NBCUniversal opts to keep its television operations on the famous lot. NBCUniversal said Wednesday that it would create new studios for the Los Angeles bureaus of NBC News and Telemundo, and their local affiliates KNBC and KVEA, near the lot's Lankershim Boulevard entrance. The 150,000-square-foot broadcast facility will be built in a building formerly used by Technicolor for production and offices, NBCUniversal said.