Walt Disney World has announced the closing dates of Grand Avenue at Hollywood Studios, with the attractions and restaurants in Muppet Courtyard, including the Mama Melrose and PizzeRizzo restaurants, as well as MuppetVision 3D. Here’s everything we know about when these experiences will permanently close in 2025, along with thoughts on what this means for the construction timelines and everything else.
In case you’re new to this saga, this is part of a big shakeup at Disney’s Hollywood Studios that began with the announcement of a Monsters Inc. Door Coaster and Monstropolis miniland back at the D23 Expo last year. What was not announced was where it’d go, with the front runners at the time being Animation Courtyard or Muppet Courtyard. Animation Courtyard seemed like the obvious choice due to its dead mall vibes and housing nothing of value.
Unfortunately, you’re reading this article so the loser in the Monstropolis sweepstakes was Muppet Courtyard. Walt Disney World has announced that they’ll be opening ‘new doors’ for Muppets and Monsters at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. On a positive note, this means the Muppets taking over Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and replacing Aerosmith.
It also means MuppetVision 3D closing to make way for the Monsters, Inc. Doors Coaster and Monstropolis. However, there are reasons to remain cautiously optimistic, as Walt Disney World also said this: “As we move forward with these changes, we are having creative conversations and exploring ways to preserve the film and other parts of the experience for fans to enjoy in the future.”
Shortly thereafter, the Jim Henson Company released a statement that they were looking forward to the “next act” of MuppetVision 3D after it vacated its current location at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
That brings us to today’s news, which is that Walt Disney World has announced the closure dates of the impacted offerings.
To make way for the monsters, the Grand Avenue area will begin a phase closing in May 2025. The last day to dine at Melrose’s Ristorante Italiano will be on May 10, 2025. Following that, Muppet*Vision 3D and PizzeRizzo will close, with the last day to experience both locations on June 7, 2025.
But, the Muppet foolishness doesn’t stop there — Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and more of their friends will be moving right along to Sunset Boulevard! The Muppets will be taking over Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, teaming up with some of music’s biggest stars for a rockin’ music festival!
Walt Disney World has not provided a closing date for Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith, nor opening dates for anything.
My strong suspicion is that the Muppet Mayhem reimagining of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster is not that far in development. The concept probably didn’t receive the greenlight until shortly before the announcement was made last holiday season, and needs more time before work is ready to begin.
I still would expect Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster to close in its current incarnation and reopen as the Muppets Mayhem version before Monstropolis. Being a roller coaster in the dark with minimal props, there’s probably a decent amount of prepwork that could be done after hours while the attraction is still operational without guests noticing. The trickier changes will happen in the queue and pre-show.
Regardless, the turnaround time on a Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster reimagining should be 6 months or less.
Disney previously indicated that work would start on Monstropolis in 2025. Our expectation has been that the miniland and Monsters, Inc. Doors Coaster would open in 2028, as opposed to earlier or later.
While Disney has yet to confirm this, Monstropolis is the simplest project of the major new lands, so it’ll almost assuredly open before Cars Land and Villains Land in Magic Kingdom. Walt Disney World likely wants a cadence of one new big addition coming online per year–and we already know Tropical Americas is debuting in 2027. That puts Monstropolis in 2028 by process of elimination.
The big surprise of this news is how soon MuppetVision–and everything else, for that matter–is closing.
Our previous expectation was that the current guest areas would remain open through at least Summer 2025 and close in the off-season at the earliest. Maybe sometime in September, perhaps immediately after the Destination D23 fan event.
Our hope was that we’d have an even longer goodbye, with MuppetVision 3D not closing until sometime in early 2026, if not even later than that. After all, there’s a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done backstage. The construction of the roller coaster and gravity building around that, along with the queue and facade for the Monsters, Inc. Door Coaster, all will take much longer than preparing the MuppetVision theater for a new show.
It seemed possible that Walt Disney World would pull from a similar playbook as is being used with Dinoland USA, where Dino-Rama just closed to be replaced by the Encanto Madrigal Casita dark ride–a new build–but where DINOSAUR and everything else that’s just being reimagined or repurposed won’t close until early 2026.
With Monstropolis presumably debuting in 2028, it stood to reason that MuppetVision would have even more time since it’s assumed to be another more simple reimagining. Given everything we thought we knew, it wouldn’t have been unrealistic for MuppetVision to close in early 2027. Well, we thought wrong.
There are a couple of possible explanations for this. The first is that Walt Disney World management feels that Disney’s Hollywood Studios doesn’t need the capacity offered by the restaurants and MuppetVision over the course of the next couple of years and is opting for the longer closure to save operating expenses. (Whereas DINOSAUR and the remnants of Dinoland are integral to the already light lineup at Animal Kingdom.)
This wouldn’t surprise me in the least. It’s common practice for Walt Disney World to find ways to save on operating expenses at times when capital expenditures are increasing. On top of that, it’s unlikely that there will be any organic growth this year at Walt Disney World, so the company will resort to cost-cutting to achieve whatever targets it might have.
The second possibility is that this project is more involved than previously thought, and it’s not a simple repurposing of the existing restaurant, retail, and attraction spaces.
This could be the case, but we doubt it. The concept art strongly suggests we’re getting one-for-one replacements of these restaurants and a new show in the MuppetVision theater. It does not seem like they are not being fundamentally transformed.
I fully expect the table service Mama Melrose to become the table service Harryhausen’s. It’s likely that PizzeRizzo is going to reimagined into a counter service restaurant with an identical footprint in a manner similar to the conversion of Pizza Planet into PizzeRizzo. And MuppetVision will likely become a new show. There’s nothing in the newest Monstropolis concept art (above) to suggest any major layout changes to Muppet Courtyard/Grand Avenue.
A final possibility is that Disney has opted to fast-track Monstropolis, or at least a portion of it, and it has leapfrogged Tropical Americas for a 2026 opening. Or that both will debut in 2027, but with Monstropolis in the first half of the year and Tropical Americas in the second half.
Disney fast-tracking projects would defy recent trends, but it certainly is possible, especially if the company anticipates construction costs rising. So there might be motivation to frontload some of this work, as opposed to backloading everything. This coupled with the operational cost-savings of shuttering Grand Avenue venues during a timeframe they won’t be “needed” strikes me as the most plausible explanation.
The entirety of Monstropolis opening in 2026 strikes me as impossible–and Walt Disney World has likely learned its lesson about doing phased openings after this area’s next door neighbor, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, fell flat upon its partial opening in mid-2019. My best guess is that Monstropolis is still coming after 2026, with the only question being whether it’s now a 2027 project or still 2028.
Outside of Monstropolis, the closure of MuppetVision has implications for the rest of Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Walt Disney World purposefully choosing different closing dates for Mama Melrose and MuppetVision suggests to us that the new Villains Unfairly Ever After and Little Mermaid stage shows will debut sometime after May 10–and probably right around June 7, 2025.
Our expectation for a while has been that Walt Disney World will have some splashy summer celebration that bundles the new DHS stage shows with Disney Starlight Night Parade and other mystery entertainment at EPCOT and/or Animal Kingdom. The odds-on favorite for all of that debuting has always been around Memorial Day, but a week before or after that would make sense.
I’m still hopeful that all of that rolls out prior to Memorial Day, just like what Disneyland is doing with the 70th celebration and return of Paint the Night. Not only does that offer a release valve on opening night/week crowds by pulling forward demand into shoulder season, but it would also give diehard fans who plan trips around Starlight a chance to say their goodbyes to MuppetVision at the same time. So selfishly, I’m still hoping this is what happens.
As for commentary beyond that, I’m mostly just heartbroken.
I’ve mostly come to terms with MuppetVision permanently closing, at least at Walt Disney World, and not being relocated to the Imagination pavilion at EPCOT or the Mickey Shorts Theater at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Even though I do think there are fairly obvious underutilized spaces at Walt Disney World where MuppetVision would be an asset.
I’ve wanted to hold out hope that if enough passionate fans make their voices heard, plans would change. That if the gang gets together and puts on a show to raise $10 million, they can save the show. In my heart, I know all of that isn’t true. Walt Disney World and Imagineering took their time on this one because they wanted to evaluate all possible options and feedback, and this is the conclusion of the saga–not a starting point for a story about saving MuppetVision.
Nevertheless, I thought we all had more time to say goodbye to MuppetVision 3D. I really expected this to be a great summer–Disney Starlight Night Parade and the new shows at Disney’s Hollywood Studios debuting, and saying goodbye to all of the departing stuff. Opening one chapter and closing another, so to speak.
I was confident about MuppetVision sticking around into 2026, especially once it was confirmed DINOSAUR wouldn’t go extinct until then. After all, if DINOSAUR being reimagined into Indiana Jones Adventure will only take 16-18 months, why on earth would transforming MuppetVision 3D into a different show take longer than that?
The answer is that it won’t, so hopefully Walt Disney World has a good reason for this approach, rather than just shuttering Muppet Courtyard early to save money. That would be insult on top of injury for many longtime fans.
Beyond that, I’m not sure what else to even say–so I’ll just repeat what I’ve written before. It’s no secret that we’re huge fans of MuppetVision 3D, and view it alongside the OG Country Bear Jamboree as one of Walt Disney World’s candidates for UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
It’s impossible for me to be unbiased when it comes to MuppetVision, but I personally believe that it still stands the test of time. It’s not just a simple 3D film, it’s truly an attraction and the funniest at Walt Disney World.
The artistic significance of MuppetVision 3D is almost immeasurable. It owns a special place in both Walt Disney World history and American culture. It’s one of the last projects that Muppet creator Jim Henson was involved in prior to his passing. It is widely regarded as an exemplar of Muppet humor and storytelling; a true masterpiece and work of art.
Finally, I want to once again direct your attention to this excerpt from Jim Henson: The Biography: “Disney would be good for the Muppets as well. If there was any organization that knew how to preserve and promote iconic characters beyond the lifetimes of their respective creators, it was the Walt Disney Company.”
“For Jim, finding such a suitable home for the Muppets was important…and if he couldn’t always tend to their well-being, he wanted to ensure they were with someone else who would. ‘Looking way back down the road to when I stop sitting in my rocking chair and working Kermit the Frog, I really like the idea of characters living on in the Disney parks,’ said Jim. ‘It’s a wonderful future for these characters. It’s as close to an eternal life as a little green frog can get.’”
While there’s some truth to the superficial sentiment that “Disney is not a museum” that’s bandied about by fans and the company to justify otherwise poor decisions, there’s also truth to the notion that some attractions are untouchable. Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, and “it’s a small world” all would fit this bill. Among a certain segment of fans, this also extends to MuppetVision 3D. I am one of those fans, so I’m pretty heartbroken about this news. That’s still the case even though this does come with a consolation prize: Muppets taking over Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Are you surprised that MuppetVision 3D and everything else in Muppet Courtyard is closing so soon…or did you expect this? What do you think of Monstropolis replacing MuppetVision? Is this addition still “worth it” to you now that it’s replacing Grand Avenue and MuppetVision 3D? Thoughts on preserving the film somehow? Do you agree or disagree with our assessments? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
