New Disney Villains Show to Replace Lightning McQueen's Racing Academy at Hollywood Studios in 2025

Sep 03, 2024 in "Disney Villains Unfairly Ever After"

Gallery / 6 Photos
Villains Show concept art

Posted: Tuesday September 3, 2024 3:08pm ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

Disney’s Hollywood Studios is set to introduce a new live entertainment experience centered around Disney Villains in the summer of 2025 at Walt Disney World.

Villains Show concept art

The new show will take place at the Sunset Showcase, located on Sunset Boulevard, and will feature dozens of iconic Disney villains .

According to Disney Live Entertainment, the production will be staged in the setting of the Magic Mirror’s mysterious realm, a reflective environment designed to bring guests closer to some of Disney’s most notorious villains. Characters such as Cruella de Vil, Captain Hook, and Maleficent are confirmed to make appearances as they break through the glass to take the stage in live production numbers

Villains Show concept art

Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy is scheduled to close on October 7, 2024, making way for the preparation and construction needed for the upcoming villains-themed production.

Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy is scheduled to close on October 7, 2024

Lightning McQueen's Racing Academy opened in March 2019, themed around the popular Pixar "Cars" franchise and features a life-sized, animatronic Lightning McQueen, voiced by Owen Wilson.

Lightning McQueen's Racing Academy show

In the show, guests are welcomed into a state-of-the-art racing simulator where Lightning McQueen appears on a 200-degree screen to share his racing expertise. The experience includes high-energy sequences and a narrative where McQueen is challenged to race against virtual competitors. Throughout the show, he is joined by characters like Mater and Cruz Ramirez, who offer support and advice.

Opened in 2015, Sunset Showcase was designed to serve as a flexible location for a variety of events and entertainment offerings at Disney's Hollywood Studios.

The venue was first introduced as the home for Club Disney, a dance party experience featuring Disney characters and interactive elements aimed at younger guests. Club Disney offered a colorful and lively atmosphere, complete with music, video projections, and activities, but it was short-lived and closed in 2016.

Club Disney Dance Party overview

After Club Disney, Sunset Showcase hosted a range of limited-time events before becoming Lightning LacQueens Racing Academy in 2019, including themed dance parties and special ticketed events, including the "Club Villain" event, which featured Disney villains in a cabaret-style show, along with themed food and drinks.

Club Villain overview

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Jedi141 day ago

What ad?

Disgruntled Walt1 day ago

I saw a YouTube ad for this that made it sound like you could vote for Jafar, which isn't exactly accurate.

jrhwdw1 day ago

TrainsOfDisney14 days ago

I would say even more so - you could put another show in there tomorrow with some quick light and video programming! (Well…. At least a month for Disney but that’s not the point! Haha)

MisterPenguin22 days ago

Trying to hold onto the throne of the Candy Kingdom is a slippery proposition. Especially since half of it's a slide.

WorldExplorer22 days ago

King Candy's fine, but he never gets put in the villain group so he's clearly not marketable.

Agent H22 days ago

Is this an unpopular opinion? If so I wasn’t aware of it.

Brer Panther22 days ago

King Candy was a pretty neat villain.

WorldExplorer23 days ago

I would say this is true, and incredibly sad given a. That movie came out 16 years ago, and b. Just judging from the amount of solo merchandise sold for other ones he still seems low on the totem pole among the ones they regularly use. (I think Gothel, who is two years newer, is well done but they never use her despite the fact that she would be ridiculously easy to pull off so I presume she doesn't sell.)

MistaDee23 days ago

that would go pretty hard honestly...for related reasons I was also a fan of Spirit Lodge over at Knotts

ᗩLᘿᑕ ֊ᗩζᗩᗰ23 days ago

The one they didn't use in the lift hill.

MistaDee23 days ago

whatever that phenomena is that resulted in "Antz" getting published on the heels of hearing about A Bugs Life, this sort of a special effects driven entertainment show does remind me more of Cirque than anything else I've seen recently. I love this sort of in park entertainment genre: Tiki Room, Horror Makeup Show. Hopefully it's also a format that can be easy to keep fresh: in the short term by letting cast riff on their lines and be creative, and in the medium to longer term by investing in relatively low cost new focal point effect for a big new Villain, maybe a big Croc puppet from Pan or something like that. What's the most marketable/iconic villain to come out of the Disney empire's more recent efforts?

Pix E. Dust24 days ago

I loved the Nemo show so much. It blew me away thr first time I saw it. The quality was beyond that of a theme park.

BocabearJun 23, 2025

I would agree with this 1000%... The Nemo show when it opened was charming...the music was fun... It was probably the last theme park show I enjoyed....The rest have all seemed like poorly written Disney Jr. shows for the 3-5 year old set...with no further depth for the older audience... Lion King while extremely popular seemed way overrated to me too... that was definitely a One and Done....