Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare New in 2026

[Captain Nemo]

When it comes to IP at Kings Island, many have come and gone. These characters on the other hand always belonged to Kings Island. So to see something so corporate like SIX on its first year green light a project like this brings me a lot of shock, yet optimism. The library of IPs they could have gone with. But some people at SIX who loved Phantom Theater are the reasons we likely saw projects like Encore and this. 
Seeing how far along Sally might be with this project gives me so much confidence in what will be the final product. Especially since the refit already takes place in a preexisting building.
I also in general love seeing the media team at KI posting updates like this! They probably have a good idea of how beloved this IP is. Plus I love watching the process. Keep’em coming! 

[kingsislandfan1972]

1 hour ago, BryanJay said:

This is great! Honestly I'm really liking the new modern look!

[SonofBaconator]

2 hours ago, BryanJay said:

I still think the ones on the top left are Houdelini:

If you look at the paper, Houdelini has two images in the center where he appears to have two a split pencil mustache- which is a departure from his thicker handlebar mustache.

Also where his eyes are positioned consistent with the image if you look closely. Garbonzo’s image seems to make him looking straight ahead where Houdelini seems to be looking elsewhere. Also there is a clearer image on the table in the image below of Garbonzo who has more of a wispy, “hungarian” style:

[BryanJay]

23 minutes ago, SonofBaconator said:

I still think the ones on the top left are Houdelini:

 

This is actually for sure true, I updated the comparisons. Honestly I’m sorta torn on a few of the designs (I think having their pupils be like 20% smaller would fix most of my issues) On one hand I think a few of the concepts for the designs look off (especially the bunny unless the eyes glow in this one too, it doesn’t look scary enough). I think a good comparison is like, these versions look more like muppets rather than the original which emulated the haunted mansion figures. I think the hard aspect about what we’ve been currently given is that most of the characters have really only had their heads shown rather than their full bodies, and also the sculpts are still a work in progress so it’s hard to judge them too far. No matter what my feelings are, it’s insane to me that we’re in the universe where a non-IP, non-Disney or universal dark ride is getting at least 17+ animatronic figures. Like there will be screens in the ride, but honestly considering that they’re putting effort into making custom figures for this I honestly don’t mind.

[kingsislandfan1972]

I don't think I'm going opening day to Kings Island in 2026 because of how busy it's going to be, so I'm going to refrain myself to any pov videos of the ride so I can avoid spoilers, I want to be surprised by the ride myself.

[SonofBaconator]

I wonder if the placement of the scenes will be a carbon copy of what they originally were- just with screens- or if they’ll change things up since screens gives them more…”freedom.” 

I’m defaulting to the former.

[flightoffear1996]

Those look really awesome!  Hopefully this means no more cardboard cutouts!

[MaestroJr]

Here’s a picture of the original Phantom theater production, courtesy of theme park University. Happy to have the Phantom theater back again, especially in an animatronics.

[Losantiville Mining Co.]

2 hours ago, BryanJay said:

I think the hard aspect about what we’ve been currently given is that most of the characters have really only had their heads shown rather than their full bodies, and also the sculpts are still a work in progress so it’s hard to judge them too far.

Add to that the fact that some of the heads are still missing their hair, hats, and some of the facial hair. I think this new art style is a better way to differentiate between the two versions and prove that this is indeed a new ride. Either way, I think the new heads look a lot better than the older ones and look like they could potentially hold up a lot better as well. The only one I'm on the fence with right now is the rabbit since it looks like the little rabbit villain from Hoodwinked. Their design also makes me wonder if they're being made to work under black light — and I don't think they are. 

I wonder if any of their eyes or mouths will be able to move...

 

1 hour ago, SonofBaconator said:

I wonder if the placement of the scenes will be a carbon copy of what they originally were- just with screens- or if they’ll change things up since screens gives them more…”freedom.” 

I’m defaulting to the former.

I personally am hoping they mix it up a little while sticking to the same overall sequence of big scenes. I'll have to finish my little prediction map soon and post it to show more of what I'm thinking.

[kingsislandfan1972]

Has anyone else been watching old POV videos of the original PT getting excited for the new ride? 

[Swiftdrawer]

8 hours ago, kingsislandfan1972 said:

Has anyone else been watching old POV videos of the original PT getting excited for the new ride? 

I did on Saturday night after I took my last ride on Boo Blasters! I also looked at POVs for Scooby Doo and The Haunted Castle because I barely remembered it’s differences from Boo Blasters as it became that when I was just a little kid.

[kingsislandfan1972]

11 minutes ago, Swiftdrawer said:

I did on Saturday night after I took my last ride on Boo Blasters! I also looked at POVs for Scooby Doo and The Haunted Castle because I barely remembered it’s differences from Boo Blasters as it became that when I was just a little kid.

Its so weird how few pov videos of Scooby-Doo & The Haunted Castle there are, I have always wondered that.

[Swiftdrawer]

1 hour ago, kingsislandfan1972 said:

Its so weird how few pov videos of Scooby-Doo & The Haunted Castle there are, I have always wondered that.

Yeah, it is weird. Someone put up a compilation of them which is what I watched because some of the POVs are either lacking in audio quality or in video quality. You’d think it’d have been more documented.

[Kylewestreviews]

Yeah, it is weird. Someone put up a compilation of them which is what I watched because some of the POVs are either lacking in audio quality or in video quality. You’d think it’d have been more documented.

I watched a compilation too a few weeks ago and the first one in the video had to be cut short because a worker got on the pa stating video recording wasn’t allowed lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SonofBaconator]

13 hours ago, MaestroJr said:

Here’s a picture of the original Phantom theater production, courtesy of theme park University. Happy to have the Phantom theater back again, especially in an animatronics.

I think if the ride still existed to this day and it never become Scooby Doo or Boo blasters, I like to think that they would’ve switched to internal face projection animatronics l-like what you see at Disney. If you look at some of the later footage of Phantom theater, you will see Maestro’s face wear down around the area from whatever jaw mechanism is making his mouth move- the same can be said for the boiler man

[TOPGUN1993]

The new character sculpts look fantastic, excited to see more! 

[johnjniehaus]

New characters animatronics looking good! Glad to see the park giving real updates and keeping people engaged again 

[Losantiville Mining Co.]

If any of these are indeed animatronics, I think their faces will look a lot better than the originals because of how their mouths would move. I seem to remember an early video with one of the Maestro's jaws looking like it was completely separated from his skull due to just how gaunt his face design was.

[SonofBaconator]

2 hours ago, Losantiville Mining Co. said:

If any of these are indeed animatronics, I think their faces will look a lot better than the originals because of how their mouths would move. I seem to remember an early video with one of the Maestro's jaws looking like it was completely separated from his skull due to just how gaunt his face design was.

I think animatronic in the sense that their bodies will move- I don’t think there’s many animatronics that have moving faces these days- even most Disney figures have internal projections.

[marineman]

I have been of the mind that Boo Blasters was on borrowed time for a long while now, as is evident by what feels like a 50/50 chance you'll get a busted shooter. I honestly kind of laugh at the sudden "No!!! Not Boo Blasters!!" kinds of comments after it more or less being a laughing stock about its poor functionality for quite some time, and the abuse it took after being "watered down" after going from Scooby to Boo. It is probably past time to do something different.   

I was disappointed to hear such a limited re-do was in the works. Same track/layout, same basic ride (go around and shoot at, or now seemingly "collect" things in the same way you'd shoot at them), whatever. I guess I was hoping for more of a fresh ride experience entirely instead of the fourth re-skin of the same ride. I think some hope was elevated a bit by the "thrill" in "family thrill ride" that was announced earlier. To me, this is just a very casual family dark ride experience, and there's really no "thrill" here if we're being completely honest. While bright, albeit extremely cartoon-like, the new faces have a similar vibe in terms of quality to the Shaggy-now-balding-guy that's running in circles mid ride. The skeptic in me assumes it will more or less have that kind of feel still. A bit disappointing, especially since it has been years since a new release has had any real appeal to me or my family (including our elementary and junior high aged kids). That said, at least something is happening at the park, and it's likely low enough budget that it hopefully won't cause even more delays in us finally getting something for the thrill seekers in the crowd again. And, maybe it'll be a pleasant surprise. We'll see.

[kingsislandfan1972]

4 hours ago, marineman said:

I have been of the mind that Boo Blasters was on borrowed time for a long while now, as is evident by what feels like a 50/50 chance you'll get a busted shooter. I honestly kind of laugh at the sudden "No!!! Not Boo Blasters!!" kinds of comments after it more or less being a laughing stock about its poor functionality for quite some time, and the abuse it took after being "watered down" after going from Scooby to Boo. It is probably past time to do something different.   

I was disappointed to hear such a limited re-do was in the works. Same track/layout, same basic ride (go around and shoot at, or now seemingly "collect" things in the same way you'd shoot at them), whatever. I guess I was hoping for more of a fresh ride experience entirely instead of the fourth re-skin of the same ride. I think some hope was elevated a bit by the "thrill" in "family thrill ride" that was announced earlier. To me, this is just a very casual family dark ride experience, and there's really no "thrill" here if we're being completely honest. While bright, albeit extremely cartoon-like, the new faces have a similar vibe in terms of quality to the Shaggy-now-balding-guy that's running in circles mid ride. The skeptic in me assumes it will more or less have that kind of feel still. A bit disappointing, especially since it has been years since a new release has had any real appeal to me or my family (including our elementary and junior high aged kids). That said, at least something is happening at the park, and it's likely low enough budget that it hopefully won't cause even more delays in us finally getting something for the thrill seekers in the crowd again. And, maybe it'll be a pleasant surprise. We'll see.

 

[kingsislandfan1972]

4 hours ago, marineman said:

I have been of the mind that Boo Blasters was on borrowed time for a long while now, as is evident by what feels like a 50/50 chance you'll get a busted shooter. I honestly kind of laugh at the sudden "No!!! Not Boo Blasters!!" kinds of comments after it more or less being a laughing stock about its poor functionality for quite some time, and the abuse it took after being "watered down" after going from Scooby to Boo. It is probably past time to do something different.   

I was disappointed to hear such a limited re-do was in the works. Same track/layout, same basic ride (go around and shoot at, or now seemingly "collect" things in the same way you'd shoot at them), whatever. I guess I was hoping for more of a fresh ride experience entirely instead of the fourth re-skin of the same ride. I think some hope was elevated a bit by the "thrill" in "family thrill ride" that was announced earlier. To me, this is just a very casual family dark ride experience, and there's really no "thrill" here if we're being completely honest. While bright, albeit extremely cartoon-like, the new faces have a similar vibe in terms of quality to the Shaggy-now-balding-guy that's running in circles mid ride. The skeptic in me assumes it will more or less have that kind of feel still. A bit disappointing, especially since it has been years since a new release has had any real appeal to me or my family (including our elementary and junior high aged kids). That said, at least something is happening at the park, and it's likely low enough budget that it hopefully won't cause even more delays in us finally getting something for the thrill seekers in the crowd again. And, maybe it'll be a pleasant surprise. We'll see.

 

[Orion-XL200]

23 minutes ago, kingsislandfan1972 said:

 

Chad entered the chat ;-) 
 

I, like @marineman, felt it was on borrowed time. Actually, I had been hoping for it would have left years earlier. While I'm not the target demographic for the ride, I definitely started to see the lack of care for the ride early on after the switch to BBOBH.

[kingsislandfan1972]

8 minutes ago, Orion-XL200 said:

Chad entered the chat ;-) 
 

I, like @marineman, felt it was on borrowed time. Actually, I had been hoping for it would have left years earlier. While I'm not the target demographic for the ride, I definitely started to see the lack of care for the ride early on after the switch to BBOBH.

Agreed for me once the Scooby-Doo theming was gone the ride had started going downhill.

[Captain Nemo]

The fog curtain and projection lasted maybe a season. Anyone remember that?

[Orion-XL200]

Even that long?

 

[kingsislandfan1972]

18 hours ago, Captain Nemo said:

The fog curtain and projection lasted maybe a season. Anyone remember that?

Yeah I remember that, I also remember it being extremely loud at that part too, I'm glad they removed it. Also does anybody remember when "Boocifer" used to say at the end of the ride "You haven't seen the last of me!" 

[Losantiville Mining Co.]

The last Boocifer never really worked at Kings Island like it does in the other Boo Blasters IMO. The others have targets all around him so you could blast and defeat him, but he just made the movements at KI.

[beastfan11]

On 9/6/2025 at 7:50 PM, Losantiville Mining Co. said:

The last Boocifer never really worked at Kings Island like it does in the other Boo Blasters IMO. The others have targets all around him so you could blast and defeat him, but he just made the movements at KI.

I believe when the ride (re)opened, our Boocifer animatronic had some kind of smoke effect too. 

[kingsislandfan1972]

When the ride opens in 2026... I hope to see more different merch, such as hats, posters, maybe even plush? I know I want a hat for sure!