Theme Park Scope

I have now looked at three pieces of concept art for the Glob Theater approximately forty times, and I keep finding something new…

…so I am going to walk you through all of it so you can share my problem.

Disney has released fresh concept art for the Glob Theater, the new show venue coming to Monstropolis at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The art is on display at Walt Disney Presents in the park, and it gives us our best look yet at the outside of the theater, the lobby, and the stage. Before we get into the pictures, here is the background. The Glob Theater, a pun on the famous Globe Theatre, is being built in the building that used to house Muppet*Vision 3D, which closed in June 2025. Inside, it will host a new show called Welcome to Monstropolis, featuring an original song of the same name written by Disney Legend Randy Newman, the first song he has ever written for a Disney theme park. Disney says the show will open in the first phase of Monstropolis, which begins opening in 2027, while the land’s door coaster is still under construction and will open later.

Let’s start outside. In the exterior concept art, the Glob Theater glows under a purple and orange evening sky, with a sparkling marquee that reads Welcome to Monstropolis, A Scarefree Theatrical Extravaganza. Look above it, and you will spot a clock tower with scale-like texture along the trim, and a banner that says the Monstropolis Department of Human Relations welcomes you. If you remember how the story of Monstropolis works, that is a very on-brand welcome, since the whole land is built around the idea of monsters opening their city to human visitors. Down on the red carpet, Sulley is giving a group of kids a hug while Mike waves at the crowd, and a small wait time sign sits near the entrance. It is the kind of image that makes it feel like a real movie premiere, and I mean that as a compliment.

Now step inside. The lobby art shows the pre-show space, and it is a lot more detailed than I expected for a room where people mostly wait. A stand called Monster Concessions anchors the back wall under a lit sign. Red curtains hang along the upper level, and screens above the doors welcome guests to Monstropolis. On the walls there are what look like parody movie posters, and two of them are visible in this image, one featuring a monster musician at a keyboard and another for something called the Little Snore Machine. Overhead hang chandeliers with round glass bulbs on curling arms above a green glass bowl with a scale pattern, which matches the scale motif on the exterior. The carpet, in teal and red, finishes the look of a grand old theater, the kind you might see in a major city, but made for monsters. This lobby art first appeared in late September, and later versions changed some of the fixtures, so it is possible that more details will keep shifting as the project moves forward.

Finally, the stage. The show art puts Mike and Sulley at center stage, under a carved arch of tentacles topped with a many-eyed monster face. Sharing the stage with them are monsters who look a lot like the Oozma Kappa crew from Monsters University, including Art, Terri and Terry, and Don Carlton, although this is concept art, so I would treat those identifications as educated guesses. Above the stage, a yellow laugh canister is flying through the air, and there are hanging scare-floor-style doors, a character hovering on a board, and small orange long-eared creatures scattered all over the theater, including one peeking over a spotlight operated by a tentacled stagehand. There is even a little band tucked into one of the side boxes. If the final show is anything like this picture, it is going to be busy, silly, and very much in the spirit of the original movie, where laughter is the thing that powers the whole city.

Disney’s Imagineers have also given us a bit of the story. According to Chris Beatty, a Walt Disney Imagineering vice president, 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. That is the premise, and it is a good one, because it taps into the dynamic that makes these two characters work.

It is also worth remembering that the Glob Theater is just one piece of a big land. Monstropolis will include Harryhausen’s, a restaurant with a many-tentacled sushi chef Audio-Animatronic, along with Archie’s Scare Pig Pizza, the Monsters University Alumni Club, and the Scareporium, with the door coaster arriving later. And if you caught our earlier coverage of Disney quietly removing the 2027 date for Tropical Americas, you know that Monstropolis is still holding its 2027 timeline, which makes this concept art feel even more like a promise.

I think the best part of seeing this art in person at Hollywood Studios, if you can swing it, is how much of the world is already built into a single building. Between the clock tower, the marquee, the lobby, and the stage, this does not look like a theater with a monster theme. It looks like a theater that has always existed in Monstropolis and is finally letting humans in.

We will keep following every Monstropolis update as the opening gets closer, so check back with Theme Park Scope for the latest.