Disney’s live-streamed session at the South by Southwest conference revealed shared some small details and concept art about theme park attractions, including a major change to Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run.   

Both the Disney World and Disneyland versions of the ride at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge will be updated next year around a new mission based on the characters of the Mandalorian and Grogu (aka Baby Yoda). The revamped simulator ride will debut on May 22, 2026 — the same day that their movie enters theaters. 

“Opening an attraction and such a massive movie on the same day wouldn’t be possible without the relationships we have inside Disney,” said Disney Imagineer Asa Kalama. “Now we’ve all worked together to come up with a new mission for Smugglers Run that plays into this narrative.”

Disney also showed off new droids that will be coming to Disney World, Tokyo Disneyland, and Disneyland Paris, including an animatronic of a droid repair specialist named Otto. 

Disney also shared the first look at its upcoming “Monsters Inc.” coaster in motion. The new coaster, which will be a part of the “Monsters Inc.”-themed land displacing the Muppets at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, will be set inside the door vault seen in the 2001 Pixar film. It will be Disney’s first suspended coaster, with guests being vertically straight out of the load station. 

Disney has shared a new animated rendering of the Monsters, Inc. suspended coaster coming to Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

The video shared at SXSW shows the load/unload area and how the ride vehicles will be lifted into the air.

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— Ashley Carter (@ashleycarter.bsky.social) March 8, 2025 at 12:30 PM

It’s worth noting that while Disney called this the “first-ever vertical lift,” that’s only true of coasters at Disney parks. Several operating coasters have lifted guests vertically like an elevator, such as Cobra’s Curse at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay and Cannibal at Lagoon in Utah.

Avengers Campus at Disney California Adventure also got some attention during the presentation. Robert Downey Jr. made an appearance to hype up Stark Flight Lab, an attraction where guests where a “robot arm will hoist you into the air where you’ll make several high-speed maneuvers inspired by Iron Man and some other Avengers,” according to Disney. 

The last in-development attraction highlighted at SXSW was the “Cars” attraction replacing the Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island in Frontierland at the Magic Kingdom. Disney shared concept art from the ride as well as footage of Imagineers testing concepts by doing real off-road driving. 

New look at concept sketches of characters in the Cars attraction coming to Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. New ride vehicles “will create the feeling of heading out into the frontier for an off-road rally race.”

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— Brooke McDonald (@brookegmcdonald.bsky.social) March 8, 2025 at 12:12 PM

With the exception of the Smuggler’s Run overhaul, Disney has not announced any precise opening dates for these attractions.

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article included an incorrect quote, attributed to “The Mandalorian & Grogu” director Jon Favreau, that had originally been published on the Disney Parks Blog. Disney has since removed the inaccurate quote from its post and Theme Park Tribune has done the same.