‘Monsters, Inc.’ coaster’s vertical lift, Tony Stark ride’s robotic arm show off Disney’s high-tech future
“Next-level future tech made real” is on the horizon for Disney theme park attractions and roller coaster rides, as hailed by Robert Downey Jr. as he and executives shared the technology behind upcoming “Monsters, Inc.” and Tony Stark rides.
Downey was a surprise guest during a presentation called “The Future of World-Building at Disney” during the South by Southwest Conference (or SXSW) on March 8, 2025 in Austin, Texas. While a lot of ground was covered during the presentation, two particularly innovative works-in-progress will be of interest to fans of theme park ride technology.
All images courtesy of Disney
‘Monsters, Inc.’ roller coaster | Disney’s Hollywood Studios
A suspended roller coaster inspired by the doors chase sequence from “Monsters, Inc.” will open at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla. as part of a new Monstropolis land, as announced in August 2024.
At SXSW 2025, Pete Docter (chief creative officer of Pixar Animation Studios) and Michael Hundgen (portfolio creative executive at Walt Disney Imagineering) discussed the upcoming attraction. Docter refreshed the audience’s memory of the film: “In the scare floor, they attach the doors to these machines that then whizz them off into the vault.”
“When we turn that experience into a ride,” Hundgen said, “we can’t use the traditional lift hill where you click and clack up an incline. That’s not gonna cut it.”
The ride is Disney’s first suspended roller coaster, meaning the track is above guests’ seats. During the boarding process, a piece of the coaster track (with the entire coaster train in tact) will detach itself from the rest of the track and approach the loading area. Then, the detached piece of track (with riders now onboard the train) will lift itself into the air and rejoin the rest of the ride path. Hundgen referred to this movement as a vertical lift.
“Just like the doors in the movie,” Hungden continued, “the train will lift straight up into the air before zooming off into that iconic vault. We’ve never done anything like this before.”
Disney revealed a concept video (embedded below) showing the attraction’s load station and coaster train.
Though “Monsters, Inc.” initially debuted in 2001 and fans have long dreamt of a roller coaster like this, Docter promises the ride is “worth the wait.”
A model of the “Monsters, Inc.” roller coaster on display at D23 2024 (labeled a “concept model”) presented the basic outline for the ride’s track and exterior. This particular model was void of coloring or queue details.
Another suspended roller coasters at a Florida theme park is Phoenix Rising, which opened in 2024 at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay.
Stark Flight Lab | Disney California Adventure
Over on the west coast at Disney California Adventure Park in Anaheim, Calif., Disney will expand the existing Avengers Campus area with two attractions, one of which is Stark Flight Lab. Disney first announced the expansion in August 2024.
“We’re taking you inside Tony Stark’s workshop to experience some of the new tech he’s been developing,” said Bruce Vaughn, president and chief creative officer of Walt Disney Imagineering, at SXSW 2025. Vaughn stood onstage next to Robert Downey Jr., who will reprise his MCU role (Tony Stark, not Doctor Doom) for the new ride.
Onboard Stark Flight Lab, guests sit in a pod, which at first moves along a track but eventually gets picked up by a robotic arm that lifts the pod off of the track, Vaughn explained, “where you’ll make several high-speed maneuvers inspired by Iron Man and maybe some of the other Avengers —”
“— that I will select based on merit and whomever picks up my FaceTime calls on the first ring,” Downey quipped.
Here’s a video rendering of how the pods will transport riders in Stark Flight Lab:
“Transferring from a track to a robot arm and then back again with humans in a pod — we’ve never done anything like this before,” said Vaughn, “and that’s why we’re so excited about it.”
Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios, was also onstage for the presentation. “It’s as fun to watch this as it is to ride it,” Feige said of Stark Flight Lab.
“Usually we hide the tech behind the scenes because we want you to be immersed in the story,” Vaughn concluded, “but the fact is, the story is about the tech in this case.”
“I talked with Bruce and the team,” Downey said, “about how we could make these robot arms feel like they’re thinking, feeling, responding, perhaps a bit eccentric.”
To that end, dancers helped Imagineers “choreograph” the robotic arm’s movements using motion capture:
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