Monstropolis opens to humans in 2027, with the door coaster still under construction

By entgrove · June 4, 2026 · Updated September 29, 2026

Disney used the Horizons showcase at D23 to put a date and names on Monstropolis, the Monsters, Inc. land rising on the west side of Disney's Hollywood Studios. Parts of the land open in 2027 while the suspended door coaster through the door vault stays in construction with no announced date, alongside a Glob Theater show hosted by Mike and Sulley, a Randy Newman theme song, Harryhausen's with an Audio-Animatronics sushi chef, Archie's Scare Pig Pizza and the Scareporium. Opening the streets ahead of the ride breaks the park's habit of single ribbon cuttings.

Guests will get into Monstropolis before the coaster is finished. During the "Horizons: A Carousel of Progress" showcase at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event, host Neil Patrick Harris brought out Walt Disney Imagineering's Michael Hundgen and Chris Beatty, who confirmed that parts of the Monsters, Inc. land under construction at Disney's Hollywood Studios will open to guests in 2027 while work continues on its door coaster. The reveals came fast: a new Randy Newman song, a Mike and Sulley stage show at the Glob Theater, a full slate of dining and shopping, and the in-story holiday that explains why monsters are letting people in at all.

A 2027 opening, ahead of the coaster

The headline from the D23 stage: guests will not have to wait for the land's anchor attraction to see Monstropolis. While construction continues on the suspended door coaster, other parts of the land open in 2027. Hundgen and Beatty walked through the shows, restaurants and shops that will greet the first human visitors.

The land is going up on the west side of the park, on the ground that until recently held Grand Avenue and Muppet*Vision 3D. Phasing it in is a change of habit for a park that has spent the last decade opening lands in a single ribbon cutting: Toy Story Land arrived complete in 2018, and Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge followed in 2019 with Rise of the Resistance as the one piece that came months later. Opening the streets first puts people inside the monster city a year or more before a wait-for-everything plan would have.

The land also gets its own theme. "Welcome to Monstropolis," written by Disney Legend Randy Newman, is the first song Newman has composed for a Disney theme park, and guests will hear it when the land opens. Newman's history with Pixar runs deep: he scored Monsters, Inc. in 2001, including the Academy Award-winning "If I Didn't Have You," then Monsters University in 2013, along with much of the studio's catalogue. The piano and brass is the sound most people already attach to Sulley and Mike, so handing him the land's welcome reads as an attempt to continue the films rather than to build a set from them.

The Glob Theater show

The song shares its name with a new show at the Glob Theater, also titled "Welcome to Monstropolis." Beatty said the monsters in the show will introduce humans to their city and spend most of the running time making the case that the two species have more in common than either assumed.

"Mike and Sulley will be our hosts," Beatty said. "Sulley has been working on a small, homespun show, but Mike, ever the showman, has a few surprises up his sleeve that he thinks will bring down the house. Hopefully not literally."

Pizza, an alumni club, and a souvenir stop

For quick service, the land gets Archie's Scare Pig Pizza, billed as Monstropolis' top-rated pizza spot. The namesake is Archie the Scare Pig, Fear Tech's six-legged mascot from Monsters University, who was stolen back and forth between campuses so often that both ended up claiming him.

Next door, the Monsters University Alumni Club opens its doors to humans dining at Archie's. Inside is a rundown of MU's student clubs, fraternities and sororities, plus a tribute Beatty singled out: "Inside the Alumni Club is the elite Scarer's Club, honoring the school's legendary scarers from years past." Souvenirs come from the Scareporium, the land's merchandise anchor, which Beatty described as "a shop where all of us human tourists can grab a great souvenir to remember our visit." The phrasing holds across the whole land: guests are tourists in a monster city, not monsters.

Harryhausen's, with an animatronic sushi chef

Hundgen showed off the one fans have been asking about since the land was announced. Harryhausen's is the sushi spot where Mike took Celia for their anniversary in Monsters, Inc., the dinner that ended with a health inspection and a city-wide panic. The Walt Disney World version puts the famed tentacled sushi chef on stage as a new Audio-Animatronics figure, working several arms at once behind the counter in view of diners, and the menu goes beyond sushi.

"A menu unlike anything else we offer at Walt Disney World," Hundgen said. "It will be a great place to bring your Schmoopsie-poo for a romantic meal." That is a claim worth holding Disney to, because a genuinely new menu format at a themed restaurant is unusual for a park addition. The closest comparisons sit a few steps away in the same park: Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater and 50's Prime Time Cafe both built their reputations on the room rather than the plate, and neither one puts an animatronic in the middle of it.

The laugh that changed everything

Steel is up behind the construction walls at Disney's Hollywood Studios and new detail appears on the site regularly. The land is a collaboration between Walt Disney Imagineering and Pixar Animation Studios, it is the largest addition to the park since Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge and Toy Story Land, and the pitch is a working monster city rather than a themed corridor. It opens with an in-world story to explain the invitation. For generations, Monstropolis ran on fear in both directions, and not only because monsters used screams to power their society. Monsters were terrified of humans, who were considered dangerous, toxic and strictly off-limits; anyone who remembers the frantic decontamination scramble over a "2319" knows how seriously the city took it. That changed when James P. Sullivan and Mike Wazowski discovered that human laughter generates far more energy than screams. The breakthrough ended the city's energy crisis and transformed Monstropolis itself, as fear gave way to curiosity and the doors between the two worlds stopped reading as barriers.

The Department of Human Relations and H.U.M.A.N. Day

According to the Monstropolis Horn, the city's in-fiction newspaper, the city has since made a "historic decision." A new civic agency, the Department of Human Relations, has been established as a second HR with a different job: working out how to host humans, and teaching monsters to treat them as welcome guests rather than threats.

That department is behind the event that frames the land's opening: H.U.M.A.N. Day, short for "Humans Understanding Monsters Are Nice." Part celebration and part cultural exchange, it invites humans into Monstropolis for the first time, to explore the city, meet its citizens, sample its cuisine and step into the everyday world of monsters, while monsters get to see that humans are not the hazard they were told about. It is also the reason guests have to be walking these streets at all. Disney says the welcome mat rolls out on H.U.M.A.N. Day in 2027.

Exploring the streets of Monstropolis

Concept art shows a full city rather than a queue with a theme: storefronts line the streets, industry runs next to daily life, and every corner reflects the character density fans expect from the films. Familiar addresses anchor the blocks, and Harryhausen's and the Glob Theater are the two that carry the most weight for anyone who knows the films, placed as destinations inside the city rather than as the whole point of it. The rest of the block is built to be read on foot rather than queued for.

What opens in 2027, and what does not

The practical takeaway is the phasing, and it is worth planning around. In 2027 guests get the city: the Glob Theater show, Harryhausen's, Archie's Scare Pig Pizza, the Monsters University Alumni Club and the Scareporium, plus the streets themselves. The door coaster, the suspended ride through the Monsters, Inc. door vault and the reason most people are watching this project, is not part of that opening and has no date, so anyone planning a Hollywood Studios trip around the ride is planning for 2028 or later. Anyone building a 2027 day around Monstropolis should plan it as a dining and atmosphere land first. For a park that has needed a new anchor since Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge opened in 2019, a phased debut still means Hollywood Studios gets something new sooner rather than later. Disney has not announced exact opening dates, menus or prices, and has not said whether Harryhausen's will take reservations through My Disney Experience or run as a walk-up. The gap that decides most trips is whether the 2027 opening lands before or after the Halloween and holiday seasons, because that is what settles which half of the year to aim at. Watch for those details at DisneyWorld.com.