Disney shows more ‘Monsters, Inc.,’ ‘Cars,’ Smugglers Run details
Disney executives shared more details Saturday about upcoming projects at Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Hollywood Studios theme parks, including a dramatic start for its “Monsters, Inc.”-based roller coaster.
The announcements were built into the “Future of World-Building at Disney” presentation at the South by Southwest Conference in Austin, Texas. It was headed by Disney Experiences Chairman Josh D’Amaro and Disney Entertainment Co-Chairman Alan Bergman, but there were appearances by multiple Imagineers, movie studio executives, knee-high droids and actor Robert Downey Jr.
The coaster, announced in August, will be a part of a “Monsters, Inc.” land designed for Hollywood Studios. Its theme will spin off from the elaborate door factory scene from the 2001 Pixar animated film.
“We can’t use the traditional lift hill where you kind of click and clack up an incline. It’s not going to cut it,” Michael Hudgen, Walt Disney World portfolio executive producer at Walt Disney Imagineering, said before showing an animation of the attraction’s loading area Saturday.
“Our coaster is a suspended coaster, and you’ll actually hang below the track, and then, just like the doors in the movie, the train will lift straight up into the air before zooming off into that iconic vault,” he said.
“It’s Disney’s first suspended coaster. It’s our first vertical lift. And we’re designing this experience to be as memorable and as fun as the film itself,” Hudgen said.
Executives also discussed an update to the Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run attraction at Star: Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Hollywood Studios. The visuals will include stops on Tatooine, at Cloud City and amid the wreckage of the second Death Star.
It will be tied to “The Mandalorian and Grogu” film; they will debut Memorial Day Weekend of 2026.
“Having this workflow allows us to go into that amazing asset library that ILM has created for films and TV shows and borrow characters, borrow ships, borrow environmental scenery, really, to help create the most authentic experience possible,” said Asa Kalama, vice president – executive creative director for Walt Disney Imagineering.
The SXSW session also included video of dessert test runs for one of two “Cars” attractions planned for Magic Kingdom’s Frontierland.
“We took everything that we learned in Arizona, and we worked with a motocross company to build a custom dirt track with a geometry similar to what we saw on the trails,” Hudgen said.
“It helps us think about the combination of elements that we’re considering for the attraction — the bumps, the turns, the dips, everything that has to go into making an authentic off-road rally race track,” he said.
Another factor for the “Cars” experience will be endurance for the ride vehicles, Hudgen said.
“They have to run 12 hours a day, seven days a week for decades,” he said. “So if your car does about 13,000 miles in a year, ours can go up to 65,000 miles every year, depending on the attraction.”
Officials did not release information about timeframes or names for the “Cars” or “Monsters, Inc.” attractions. It was announced that the walk-around BDX droids, a handful of which appeared on stage Saturday, would be coming to Walt Disney World, as well as Disneyland Paris and Tokyo Disneyland later this year.
Saturday’s session was capped by an appearance by Downey, who has played Iron Man in multiple movies and has been involved with Imagineers in the making of new attractions coming to the Avengers Campus at Disneyland in California.
“What I didn’t know was how stealth and exclusive the Walt Disney Imagineering HQ was,” Downey said. “It’s the Area 51 of fun.”