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Disney writer dishes on the real reason the Lizzie McGuire reboot got the ax — prepare to be angry
A new gay character and sex may be the reason behind the show getting the ax.
A writer is spilling the tea on why Disney gave a Lizzie McGuire reboot the ax, and the answer may infuriate you.
Back in 2019, Disney teased that they were reviving the beloved Hilary Duff show, but then pulled the rug out from under fans’ feet when they canceled the project in 2020.
Now, writer Jonathan Hurwitz, who was working on the planned reboot, has created a four-part series on TikTok dishing on how they planned to make a “show about a 30-year-old woman doing things that 30-year-old women do,” including adding a queer character and *gasp* consensual premarital sex.
The first episode would have found Lizzie working as an interior designer and living in New York with a gay roommate who Hurwitz said was “loosely based” on him. Disney is known for removing queer scenes from Pixar movies and moving the gay-centric show Love, Victor to Hulu because it wasn't "family friendly" enough.
In this premiere episode, Lizzie finds out that her chef boyfriend has been cheating on her with her best friend, which prompts her to move back to her childhood home, where she is reunited with the animated version of Lizzie from the original show, Deadline reports.
@jonathanhurwitz Cheating boyfriends, gay roommates, high school crushes, oh my! #lizziemcguire #lizziemcguirereboot #hilaryduff #fyp #foryou ♬ original sound - jonathanhurwitz
After Lizzie and her childhood best friend Gordo (Adam Lamberg) kissed at the end of the 2005 movie, many fans were hoping they were end game, but according to Hurwitz, when Lizzie moves back home, she discovers he’s engaged with a baby on the way. The episode would have ended with Lizzie getting a text from her former crush, Ethan Croft (Clayton Snyder).
While it sounds like those first two episodes were already filmed, Hurwitz thinks it was the planned third episode that caused Disney to scrap the whole project.
“Episode 3 wasn’t filmed, but there was a script for it,” Hurwitz said. “Lizzie wakes up in Ethan’s bed, in his water polo t-shirt. Animated Lizzie pops up and she has this little checklist, like a to-do list, and Ethan is on the list and she checks it off.”
He continued, “I think she says something like, ‘I checked that box – dramatic pause – twice.’ So if I had to guess, I saw another comment about certain storylines [about] why Disney wasn’t comfortable with it, my guess was… that moment was probably one of them.”
In a 2022 interview with Women’s Health, Duff said that Disney gave the reboot the boot when she butted heads with the House of Mouse because she wanted the show to be about a more mature version of Lizzie.
“She didn’t need to be doing bong rips and having one-night stands all the time, but it had to be authentic,” she said, according to The Pink News. "I think they got spooked.”
None of this is good news for fans hoping the reboot would eventually see the light of day, but Duff said she was “optimistic” that Lizzie McGuire could be revived on an episode of Watch What Happens Live.
Ariel Messman-Rucker is an Oakland-born journalist who now calls the Pacific Northwest her home. When she’s not writing about politics and queer pop culture, she can be found reading, hiking, or talking about horror movies with the Zombie Grrlz Horror Podcast Network.
Ariel Messman-Rucker is an Oakland-born journalist who now calls the Pacific Northwest her home. When she’s not writing about politics and queer pop culture, she can be found reading, hiking, or talking about horror movies with the Zombie Grrlz Horror Podcast Network.
