A new land opens at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World next month. It includes a few surprises for fans of obscure, lesser-known characters, and Disney just shared a first look inside. Plus, a major milestone on the construction of the land is now complete.
The new area’s centerpiece is also a throwback to a controversial point in Disney World history. We share all the details, plus the staggered timeline of when the new land will open. Mickey Visit brings you the latest Disney news and planning resources, including changes coming to a popular EPCOT dining location and how Disney just relaunched an old theme park with a new name.
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Sneak Peek Inside New Hollywood Studios Land
The Walt Disney Studios is a new land coming to Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The redundancy of the naming is because this new area of the Florida theme park resembles the real headquarters for The Walt Disney Company in Burbank, California. Thus, a version of The Walt Disney Studios, the real place, is inside Disney’s Hollywood Studios, the theme park.
To that end, the land’s centerpiece attraction, The Magic of Disney Animation, takes place inside a building resembling Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Roy E. Disney Building. The real version of this facility is flanked by the sorcerer’s hat from Fantasia at its main entrance, so the theme park version will be, too.
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Disney installed the new sorcerer’s hat atop the entrance to The Magic of Disney Animation overnight on April 13, 2026.
A much bigger sorcerer’s hat previously stood in front of the park’s replica of the TCL Chinese Theatre from 2001 to 2015. Disney fans have long been divided on whether or not the sorcerer’s hat was a good fit for Hollywood Studios. While the new, smaller version isn’t necessarily a tribute to that defunct structure, there is a sense of kismet about Hollywood Studios having a sorcerer’s hat once again.
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While some of The Walt Disney Studios theme park land will be grounded in its real-life inspiration, other components add a fantastical element to the space. For instance, at this version of the campus, classic Disney characters have left their handprints, footprints, and signatures in the cement.
Disney shared a first look at some of the cement pavers. Interestingly, the designs of the handprints and footprints imagine the dimensions of the characters as they appear in their respective animated films, not the mascot costumes of the characters from the theme parks. For instance, Stitch’s paw prints are much smaller than the mold for the Stitch mascot’s huge foot.
Some of the cement pavers include creative visual gags. Cinderella’s footprints seem to have been imprinted by one glass slipper and one shoeless foot. Elsewhere, Heihei the chicken seems to have walked all over Moana’s space.
Additionally, in a nice touch of Disney continuity, the characters’ cement signatures match how they sign their names in guests’ autograph books during theme park character greetings. When guests meet characters in the parks, each character signs their name a specific way that evokes their personality. The same versions of those signatures appear in the cement at The Walt Disney Studios for characters who meet in the parks, like Belle and Hercules.
Here are all the characters whose handprints, footprints, pawprints, hoofprints, and other assorted limbs appear in the cement at The Walt Disney Studios that Disney revealed so far:
- Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Walt Disney’s predecessor to Mickey Mouse in the 1920s
- Yen Sid, aka the sorcerer from Fantasia
- Cinderella
- Winnie the Pooh
- Piglet
- Little John from Robin Hood
- Belle
- Hercules
- Pegasus
- Stitch
- Moana
- Maui
Attractions Opening Timeline for New Land
The Walt Disney Studios replaces the area of Disney’s Hollywood Studios formerly known as Animation Courtyard. This space is currently boarded up with construction walls as the transformation takes place.
On May 26, 2026, The Walt Disney Studios will officially open, but not all of its attractions will be ready by that date.
The main attraction of The Walt Disney Studios is a pavilion-style experience called The Magic of Disney Animation. Inside, guests will learn how Disney animated films are made, meet characters, and participate in a drawing class hosted by an Olaf Audio-Animatronics figure. See all the details about The Magic of Disney Animation here. This attraction replaces Star Wars Launch Bay, which closed in 2025.
The Magic of Disney Animation opens in late summer 2026. Disney has not announced an opening date.
A new show called Disney Jr. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Live! will star Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, and Daisy. The interactive production is designed to feel like a real-life episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse+. It will open on May 26, 2026, inside the soundstage formerly home to the Disney Jr. Play & Dance! live show.
The last attraction inside The Walt Disney Studios is The Little Mermaid – A Musical Adventure, an indoor stage production with live actors and puppets. The Little Mermaid – A Musical Adventure opened in 2025 and remains open throughout the construction of The Walt Disney Studios.
Hollywood Studios Changes
Elsewhere in Disney’s Hollywood Studios, a new version of Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run will open on May 22, 2026. The Mandalorian and Grogu will join the mission, and riders will get to choose which planet they visit. This version of the ride will also open at Disneyland in California on the same day.
Sometime in summer 2026, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets will open as a new version of the park’s classic indoor coaster, replacing Aerosmith with the likes of Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy.
Further into the future, Hollywood Studios is preparing for the new Monstropolis land, inspired by Monsters, Inc. and featuring a new roller coaster based on the movie’s doors chase. See the construction milestone Monstropolis just reached.
Take a look at all the new attractions opening at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, as well as everything that closed to make way for the new experiences.
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