'Lizzie McGuire' reboot writer spills adult plotline that got series canceled
It's been four years since the reboot was greenlit (and then canceled), and Lizzie McGuire fans and producers are still not over it.
On TikTok, writer Jonathan Hurwitz revealed the storyline of the Lizzie McGuire series, which was axed by Disney prior to its airing.
"They greenlit a show about a 30-year-old woman and so we wrote a show about a 30-year-old woman doing things that 30-year-old women do," he said.
According to Hurwitz, the premise of the series revolves around a now adult and successful Lizzie McGuire who works as an interior designer in New York and is dating a hot chef. However, she finds out that her boyfriend has been cheating on her with her best friend, prompting her to go back to California. (If you're already thinking, Hurwitz said no, it's not Miranda. It's a new girl named Bianca).
In California, Lizzie (played by Hilary Duff) meets up with her longtime friend Gordo, who is happily engaged and expecting a baby.
"In this version, Lizzie and Gordo would not have ended up together," he said, adding that at the end of the second episode, Lizzie gets a text from her middle school crush, Ethan Craft.
Hurwitz said episode 3 wasn't filmed but there was a script ready for it. The episode would see Lizzie waking up in bed wearing Ethan's water polo T-shirt. Hurwitz guessed that is one of the reasons why Disney canceled the series.
“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,” Hurwitz shared.
“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,” he continued.
Lizzie McGuire is an American comedy television series about a middle school student who tries to navigate the challenges of adolescence. It ran for two seasons on Disney Channel from 2001 to 2004.
A little over a year after Disney announced the reboot, Duff confirmed in December 2020 that the television channel had canceled the series because of creative differences. According to Deadline, "Duff wanted to make a more adult version of Lizzie McGuire to reflect her age, while the streamer wanted to keep it as family-friendly as possible."
A representative from Disney also said: “Lizzie McGuire fans have high expectations for any new stories. Unless and until we are confident we can meet those expectations, we’ve decided to hold off and today, we informed the cast’s representatives that we are not moving forward with the planned series.”
Watch the video below.
@jonathanhurwitz Cheating boyfriends, gay roommates, high school crushes, oh my! #lizziemcguire #lizziemcguirereboot #hilaryduff #fyp #foryou ♬ original sound - jonathanhurwitz
