Disney’s Villains Land Is Taking Shape Behind Big Thunder

In August 2024, Josh D’Amaro stood on a D23 stage in Anaheim and told a room full of Disney fans, “Be prepared, you poor unfortunate souls.” Then he announced it: a whole land built around the studio’s villains, going in at Magic Kingdom, out past Big Thunder Mountain where the railroad’s red rocks give way to backstage swamp. Two major attractions. Dining. Shopping. “Plans are drawn,” he said. “Dirt is moving.”

Picture a dark, thorny corner of the park where the bad guys finally get top billing, tucked into the least developed stretch of the most visited theme park on earth. It was the kind of announcement that makes a Fantasyland regular start doing the math on how far a walk it is from the castle.

Here is where the project stands today. Disney has not announced an official name or an opening date yet. For now fans, and Disney in casual mentions, are simply calling it Villains Land. And the vision has kept growing since that first 2024 reveal.

A design reimagined bigger and bolder

A year after the announcement, in August 2025, Disney’s Imagineers pulled the curtain back a little. They’d been to Paris and Barcelona, studying the swirling, natural lines of Art Nouveau and the stranger geometry of Catalan Modernisme, and they’d cooked up a phrase for the look they were chasing: “Conjured Architecture.” Think jewel tones, stained glass, painted metal, buildings that feel faintly cursed. They also brought in Andreas Deja, the Disney Legend who animated Gaston, Jafar, and Scar, to consult on getting the characters right. If you’re building a land around these villains, hiring the man who drew three of them is a wonderful start.

Then, early in 2026, the vision grew. Reporting from TouringPlans’ Len Testa and The Wrap said Disney executives had looked at the original plans and asked Imagineers to go bigger and bolder. The rumored expanded lineup reaches well beyond two rides: a family coaster themed to The Emperor’s New Groove, a high-tech Maleficent boat ride in the vein of Shanghai’s astonishing Pirates attraction, a Hades dinner show, and possibly an Ursula spinner. One thing to keep in mind about that last part: none of it is confirmed. It is well-sourced rumor, and Disney hasn’t said a public word about specific rides yet.

What is confirmed is the dirt, and it is exciting to watch. Permits filed in January 2026 laid out several show buildings on the site, the largest around 83,000 square feet, along with smaller structures and a roughly 5,800-square-foot building near the Haunted Mansion. By March, crews were relocating trees and flattening ground. By June, real site work had begun on the show building pads, with underground utilities and stormwater systems going in. And if you’ve seen anyone cite a “2028” date for this land, that figure comes from an infrastructure and utility permit and refers to that work rather than to an opening.

So this is early days, and that is part of the fun of following along. The most reliable industry timelines point to Villains Land opening around 2030 or later, following the Cars-themed Piston Peak land going in nearby. Today the site holds graded pads and buried pipe, and the design has been reimagined to be bigger and bolder.

Here is the encouraging part for anyone rooting for it: the bones look serious. Nobody pours this much concrete and hires Andreas Deja for a land they plan to quietly cancel. The foundations are going in, and this story is just getting started.

The latest

This story is being tracked live. D23 runs August 14 to 16, 2026 in Anaheim, on the same stage where the land was first announced, and this piece will be updated if a name, an opening date, or an official ride lineup surfaces there.

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 offered a first look at the Villains-themed land with two themed tree sculpts that set its atmosphere and visual language.