Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World is known for bringing some of the most beloved films to life through innovative live entertainment and immersive lands. Hollywood Studios is a major focus of Disney World's broader expansion plans, with lots of new experiences on the horizon.
As this theme park looks toward its future, Disney will introduce new and updated attractions utilizing some of the company's biggest franchises. Some very highly anticipated experiences are coming to this popular park. In this article, we're going to take a deep dive into all of them. At Mickey Visit, we cover the latest Disney news, like a new Disney gift card discount deal and new Disneyland additions for this spring. Also, see the Disney World Early Entry change dropping an attraction.
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1. Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run at Disney’s Hollywood Studios will introduce a new mission with Din Djarin, aka the Mandalorian, and Grogu, aka “baby Yoda.”
In a big change, riders will get to choose their destination among these locations:
- Bespin, home of Cloud City
- Endor, where the wreckage of the second Death Star is strewn about
- Coruscant, one of the galaxy's busiest cityscapes
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The updated story involves riders capturing ex-Imperial officers.
These changes will be a permanent replacement of Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run's current storyline, which focuses on Hondo Ohnaka, a character from the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Whether the Audio-Animatronics figure of Hondo in the pre-show will still be part of the attraction remains to be seen.
This new storyline will also come with upgraded technology for this 2019 attraction. The real-time image rendering inside the Millennium Falcon windows will look smoother than ever.
Each rider on Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run is assigned a role within the ship’s crew: pilot, gunner, or engineer. Typically, the engineer position is lamented as the most boring assignment, with little to do other than push a button when you’re told. That will change with the new version opening, as the engineer will now be responsible for looking after Grogu!
The new version of Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run will open on May 22, 2026, at Disney's Hollywood Studios. This is the same day the new movie The Mandalorian and Grogu releases in theaters.
The changes to Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run will also debut that same day at Disneyland Park in California, where they arrive shortly after a more fluid timeline for Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge debuts.
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2. The Walt Disney Studios
A new area of Disney's Hollywood Studios will be called The Walt Disney Studios. While the naming may sound repetitive, The Walt Disney Studios is meant to be a theme park version of the real headquarters for The Walt Disney Company in Burbank, California.
The Walt Disney Studios includes a few new attractions we'll detail later in this article.
This campus complex is complete with a soundstage, home to Disney Jr. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Live!; the animation studio, home to The Magic of Disney Animation; and the studio theater, home to The Little Mermaid – A Musical Adventure. The latter production debuted in 2025. It remains open during construction and will be annexed into the newly named area.
The Walt Disney Studios is located just off of Hollywood Boulevard, this park's “main street,” near Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway. Before being called The Walt Disney Studios, this part of the park was formerly known as Animation Courtyard.
The Walt Disney Studios will open on May 26, 2026.
3. Disney Jr. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Live!
In 2025, an indoor stage show called Disney Jr. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Live! premiered at Disney California Adventure in Disneyland Resort. Later this year, the show will open a duplicate version at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World.
The show features classic Disney characters in a call-and-response audience format similar to the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse+ television series. The story focuses on Mickey and Minnie searching for Goofy, Daisy Duck, and Pluto just before a big party. Interestingly, Donald Duck does not appear in the show.
The production will debut inside a building at Disney's Hollywood Studios, known for hosting preschool-geared productions in the past, most recently Disney Jr. Play and Dance!
Longtime Walt Disney World visitors may remember Mickey Mouse Clubhouse being part of older shows in this venue with puppets. For this new show, based on the reboot Mickey Mouse Clubhouse+, the characters appear as their usual, full-body, walk-around costume versions rather than puppets.
Disney Jr. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Live! will open on May 26, 2026.
4. Rock ‘n' Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets
Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith permanently closed on March 2, 2026, at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Imagineers are currently transforming the attraction into Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets.
When the ride reopens, the existing track will remain in place. The story will instead incorporate Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, the Electric Mayhem band, and other favorite Muppets.
The attraction's story still begins at the G-Force Records studio in Los Angeles, just like the previous Aerosmith version of the ride. Now, though, the Muppets are in charge of the record label.
As VIP visitors, we've arrived just in time to see the Electric Mayhem, the house band of The Muppet Show. They're late for a big concert across town, but Muppet Labs has a snazzy way of getting them, and us, there: a super-stretch, super-fast limousine!
When Disney first announced Rock ‘n' Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets in November 2024, the company said the attraction would involve the Electric Mayhem “teaming up with some of music’s biggest stars for a rockin’ music festival.” Disney hasn't mentioned celebrity musicians in more recent communication about the reimagined ride, but rather spoke of “the Electric Mayhem playing some of the most iconic, rockin’ hits.”
Regardless of whether a roster of celebrity musicians may be involved, Disney has not revealed which songs riders might hear onboard the coaster.
Disney has said Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets will open in summer 2026, but has not announced a specific opening date. Here is when Mickey Visit predicts Rock ‘n' Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets will open.
The Magic of Disney Animation
The building that once housed Star Wars Launch Bay at Disney's Hollywood Studios will be transformed back into a new version of The Magic of Disney Animation, a longtime attraction that closed in 2015.
The aesthetic here will be modeled after the real Walt Disney Animation Studios in Burbank, California. We, the guests, are visiting the campus while the animators are away. In their absence, the Disney characters of the animators' sketch pads and computer screens have come to life.
Star Wars Launch Bay permanently closed in September 2025, and construction is ongoing for The Magic of Disney Animation, which Disney says will open in “late summer 2026.”
The Magic of Disney Animation isn't one singular attraction, but rather multiple attractions packaged into one, multi-part experience. Guests can participate in all of the attractions at their own pace, or pick and choose to only experience some of the attractions. In this way, The Magic of Disney Animation is similar to an EPCOT pavilion, such as The Land.
Now, let's break down each individual component of The Magic of Disney Animation coming to Disney's Hollywood Studios.
5. Olaf Draws!
One of the attractions within The Magic of Disney Animation will be Olaf Draws!, an animation class. Guests will learn how to draw a favorite Disney character with the help of Olaf from Frozen and a real Disney animator via a prerecorded video.
Olaf will appear as a new Audio-Animatronics figure, similar to the one inside the Frozen Ever After ride at EPCOT.
Olaf Draws! will have nine different versions, each teaching guests how to draw a different Disney character or two: Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Ursula from The Little Mermaid, Genie from Aladdin, Stitch from Lilo & Stitch, Olaf from Frozen, Moana, or Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde from Zootopia.
Walt Disney World has hosted animation classes before, but always with a live instructor. The new Olaf Draws! approach of the class being guided by an Audio-Animatronics figure and a video marks a departure from the norm for this format of attraction.
Notably, another drawing class, The Animation Experience at Conservation Station, pictured above, permanently closed in February 2026 in Disney's Animal Kingdom to make way for an upcoming experience themed to Bluey. Therefore, Olaf Draws! at Disney's Hollywood Studios will fill a void rather than duplicating an experience at multiple Walt Disney World parks.
Across the country, Disney has not announced any changes to that version of the west-coast version of this attraction. Animation Academy at Disney California Adventure will continue operating with a live instructor and no Olaf Audio-Animatronics figure.
6. Once Upon a Studio
Once Upon a Studio is a 2023 short film produced to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Walt Disney Animation Studios. It takes place at the real studio headquarters and involves 543 Disney characters coming together to take a group photo.
As part of The Magic of Disney Animation at Disney's Hollywood Studios, the 8-minute Once Upon a Studio will be screened in its entirety. Guests will watch the short film in a theater custom-designed with special effects just for Once Upon a Studio, such as artwork on the walls “coming to life” to coincide with the action on screen.
It's interesting to see Disney screening a pre-existing film in a theme park that's available for guests to watch at home. Once Upon a Studio is available for anyone to watch for free in its entirety on Walt Disney Animation Studios' YouTube channel. This differs from, for example, Zootopia: Better Zoogether!, an animated film that guests can only see at Disney's Animal Kingdom.
This approach is rare, but not unprecedented. At EPCOT, the Disney & Pixar Short Film Festival in the Imagination! Pavilion screens three shorts that debuted theatrically years ago, and which guests can watch on Disney+ anytime. Even going back to Disneyland's first decade, one attraction called 3D Jamboree compiled two existing Disney animated shorts, Working for Peanuts starring Donald Duck and Adventures in Music: Melody starring Professor Owl.
I think Once Upon a Studio works well for this venue at Disney's Hollywood Studios, as it's directly integrated into the backstory for The Magic of Disney Animation: guests visiting Walt Disney Animation Studios when the animators are away and the characters come to life.
All the same, I'd love to see Disney continue creating original films for the parks in the future rather than recycling existing projects.
7. Off the Page!
Off the Page! is a character meet & greet location inside The Magic of Disney Animation. It will include six meet & greet stations featuring Goofy, Donald Duck and Daisy Duck, Chip and Dale, Mulan, Stitch from Lilo & Stitch, and Rapunzel from Tangled.
While character interactions, photos, and autographs will, of course, be the main focus of Off the Page!, the experience provides an educational component too. Each of the six photo-ops will resemble a different aspect of Walt Disney Animation Studios' process: story, layout, hand-drawn animation, computer-generated animation, lighting, and effects.
For example, in the concept artwork above featuring Rapunzel, representing layout, different layers of the scenery are spread out physically, just like the multiplane camera, a revolutionary tool for its time.
It's not yet clear if the six stations of Off the Page! will be set up individually, or if guests will all enter one queue and visit each station sequentially.
I love the effort of turning what could be a typical meet & greet into an opportunity for edutainment, Disney's longstanding value of combining education with entertainment.
Two of the character choices here are especially meaningful too. Mulan and Stitch aren't just arbitrary. Both of their movies were created onsite here at Disney's Hollywood Studios, back when the theme park had a working animation studio.
Off the Page! will open with The Magic of Disney Animation in late summer 2026.
8. Drawn to Wonderland
Drawn to Wonderland is a themed play area inside The Magic of Disney Animation. Like several other activities within the pavilion-style attraction, Drawn to Wonderland has a bit of educational history behind it.
At first glance, Drawn to Wonderland might appear to simply be a playground based on Alice in Wonderland. While that's partly true, its significance goes one step further to be based on concept art developed for that 1951 Disney film by beloved artist Mary Blair, an example of which is pictured above.
Mary Blair's distinct style of artistry inspired many classic Disney films, including Cinderella and Peter Pan. Blair also led the art direction for “it's a small world” when that attraction was first designed.
Drawn to Wonderland at The Magic of Disney Animation will evoke Blair's style with a flower garden made of musical instruments, a playground set in the film's tea party sequence, and an area based on Wonderland's Tulgey Wood.
Drawn to Wonderland will open with The Magic of Disney Animation in late summer 2026.
9. Monsters, Inc. Roller Coaster
Monstropolis is a new land coming to Disney’s Hollywood Studios based on the Pixar film Monsters, Inc. The headliner attraction here is a new roller coaster themed to the chase sequence through the door vaults at the climax of the movie!
This will be the first suspended coaster in a Disney theme park. This means the track is above the riders, with the coaster trains hanging from it.
The ride will begin with guests boarding the coaster train just like any other roller coaster. Once everyone is buckled in, the entire coaster train will be lifted into the air and placed onto the track, mimicking the way the doors file into place on the factory floor in the movie!
Disney has not announced the name of this roller coaster or when it will open. Here is when Mickey Visit predicts the Monsters, Inc. roller coaster will open.
Check out our recent construction update to see the latest progress on this highly anticipated coaster.
10. Monstropolis Indoor Theater Show
A large portion of Monstropolis replaces the Muppets Courtyard area of Disney’s Hollywood Studios, including Muppet*Vision 3D, which permanently closed in 2025. Rather than bulldozing the former Muppet*Vision 3D theater, Disney will reuse the building for a new attraction.
An indoor show will reside in this space. Concept art shows the venue might be named “The Glob.”
Other than this minimal information and the current exterior construction progress, pictured above from February 2026, we don't know much about this future Monstropolis attraction. Even the basics are unclear at the time of this writing, such as whether the show will feature live performers or if it will be largely screen-based.
Disney hasn't yet shared an opening date for this indoor theater show or Monstropolis at large.
11. Harryhausen's Restaurant
Throughout what was formerly known as Muppets Courtyard, and before that was known as the Streets of America, Disney will repurpose existing facilities into new experiences that match the Monstropolis theme.
Concept art depicts a restaurant resembling Harryhausen’s from the movie replacing what was once Mama Melrose’s Ristorante Italiano, a table-service restaurant.
In Monsters, Inc., Mike Wazowski and his girlfriend Celia celebrate their anniversary at a restaurant called Harryhausen’s. Their date doesn’t last long, though, as the restaurant’s patrons are soon in distress at the sight of a human child.
We would expect Monstropolis to open with a highly themed dining experience, and it makes sense for Harryhausen's to occupy the available space for the land's primary table-service offering. It's the only recognizable dining establishment in the film, and the precedent set by other large-scale Disney theme park lands has primed guests to expect to eat at highly themed restaurants that recreate locations from the films they're based on.
While not an exact replica of Harryhausen's, Disney just opened Mike & Sulley's – Flavors of Asia on the Disney Adventure cruise ship. The new restaurant may offer a peek at what's to come for Harryhausen's at Disney's Hollywood Studios.
12. Additional Monsters, Inc. Dining & Shopping
As we've already seen above, Monstropolis will repurpose many of the buildings that were formerly part of the Muppets Courtyard and Streets of America sections of Disney's Hollywood Studios.
Even with The Glob replacing the Muppet*Vision 3D theater and Harryhausen's replacing Mama Melrose's Ristorante Italiano, that still leaves a few available plots for new tenants: PizzeRizzo, a quick-service restaurant that was previously known as Toy Story Pizza Planet Arcade before its Muppet-themed days, and It's a Wonderful Shop, a Christmas-themed store.
It's also worth noting that the former Stage 1 Company Store, the area's large Muppet-themed gift shop, was bulldozed as part of construction. Its absence will allow for more pedestrian traffic through this soon-to-be very popular area.
If Disney follows the same layout of the former area, Monstropolis would have a quick-service restaurant and a gift shop.
That being said, It's a Wonderful Shop was quite small compared to the size of a store we'd expect from a major new land tied to an established Disney intellectual property. We expect the land's primary gift shop to be attached to the roller coaster or otherwise be located elsewhere within Monstropolis.
Recent Openings at Hollywood Studios
All of the upcoming additions to Disney's Hollywood Studios described in this article are on top of the theme park's other recent attractions already open.
The park debuted a slate of new live entertainment over the past few years, including new shows like The Little Mermaid – A Musical Adventure and Disney Villains: Unfairly Ever After, pictured above, in 2025, and a revamped version of the Fantasmic! nighttime show in 2022 with new scenes and special effects.
When it comes to dining, Roundup Rodeo BBQ opened in 2023 as Toy Story Land's resident table-service restaurant.
If you last visited Disney's Hollywood Studios before the pandemic, major new rides might also be new to you. These include the family-friendly Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway and the incredible Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, described by some Imagineers as Disney's best attraction.
Guests visiting during the holiday season can experience Disney Jollywood Nights, an after-hours party that first started in 2023 and features new shows, special characters, and exclusive food.
There’s a lot to look forward to in the coming years at Disney's Hollywood Studios, and we’re excited to continue to bring you coverage of all it right here at Mickey Visit. We will be watching closely and sharing any details as we get them.
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