Avatar Is Coming to Disney California Adventure

The concept art is stunning. A boat glides across a dark lagoon, past coral reefs that glow from the inside, under the kind of towering Pandoran plant life that made the first movies worth the 3D glasses. Disney unveiled it at D23 in August 2024, when Disney Experiences chairman Josh D’Amaro told the crowd an Avatar experience was coming to Disney California Adventure. He called it “a dynamic, intense and emotional experience on a grand scale,” centered on exploring Pandora’s seas and natural wonders, drawn from “Avatar: The Way of Water” and the films still to come. The room roared.

That announcement gave fans a park and a feeling to dream on. Disney named Disney California Adventure as the home and shared the emotional heart of the experience. Details like the ride system, the footprint, and the opening year are still to come, and Disney has not announced an opening date yet.

It arrived as part of a bigger plan to reimagine Disney California Adventure, the park that sits across the esplanade from Disneyland. Avatar is a shining centerpiece of that vision, and it is the project fans keep coming back to.

Here is what fan outlets are reporting, kept separate from what Disney has confirmed. Enthusiast outlets say the land will rise in Hollywood Land’s backlot area, and that the marquee attraction will borrow the trackless boat system behind Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure at Shanghai Disneyland. If that holds, it would be a livelier ride than the slow, dreamy drift of Na’vi River Journey in Florida. Disney has not confirmed those details yet.

The building math

This part touches real fans’ hearts. The space many expect Avatar to fill is currently home to Monsters, Inc. Mike and Sulley to the Rescue, the gentle dark ride that has been rolling through Monstropolis since the park’s 2006 overhaul. It was slated to close in early 2026. Disney then extended its run and moved the closure to 2027, keeping one of California Adventure’s few little-kid rides open for families in the meantime. Disney also noted that this timeline change does not affect the Avatar experience.

In the weeks before this year’s D23, some fans wondered about the project’s status. Disney offered reassurance in its third-quarter earnings materials in August 2026, where the company’s graphic of upcoming park projects still listed the Avatar experience among the things it is building. Disney has not shared a groundbreaking or a date, and the plan remains firmly on the board.

The excitement makes sense about 2,500 miles east. Pandora, The World of Avatar opened at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in 2017 and is, by broad agreement, one of the finest things Disney has built this century. Avatar Flight of Passage still commands long lines nearly a decade on, and the floating mountains still stop guests mid-step. That is the inspiring standard the California project can build toward. This version is a boat ride slotted into an existing land, and everyone who loved Florida’s Pandora knows just how much magic that source material holds.

So here is where things stand today. Confirmed: Avatar is coming to Disney California Adventure, it remains in Disney’s public plans, and Monsters, Inc. runs until 2027. Still to come: what you will actually ride, how much land it will fill, and the year you can finally go. Everything beyond that confirmed list is fan speculation until Disney shares more.

The timing is exciting. D23 2026 runs August 14 through 16 in Anaheim, which means the next update could arrive within days. If it does not, fans have a whole lot of gorgeous concept art to enjoy while they wait.

The latest

This story is being tracked live and will be updated the moment D23 2026 moves it.

This is part of our live tracker of every new land and ride Disney announced at D23 2024. See where all eleven stand: D23 2026, live: every Disney parks reveal, and the latest on what is coming.

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Live updates

[Aug 14, 4:13 p.m. PT] At the Imagineering: Horizons pavilion, Disney revealed an Avatar destination for Disney California Adventure with rockwork studies and ride vehicle models.