Millennial favorite show Lizzie McGuire is an obvious choice for a reboot, and there almost was one. But things fell apart due to creative differences between family-friendly Disney, which aired the original series on the Disney Channel, and star Hilary Duff wanting to take things in an “adult” direction.
“I want any reboot of Lizzie to be honest and authentic to who Lizzie would be today. It’s what the character deserves,” Duff wrote on Instagram in 2020. “We can all take a moment to mourn the amazing woman she would have been and the adventures we would have taken with her. I’m very sad, but I promise everyone tried their best, and the stars just didn’t align.”
Over three years later, Jonathan Hurwitz, a writer for the canceled reboot, shared details about the show — including the sex joke that might have been the final straw for Disney.
“Basically, it starts in New York,” he said in a TikTok video, according to E! News. “Lizzie’s been working and living there as an interior designer, and she’s dating this very, very handsome chef. And she ends up finding that he’s been cheating on her with her best friend.” He continued, “She, at the end of the pilot, goes home to California, to the home we all saw in the original show, and she’s in her childhood bedroom where little animated Lizzie has been waiting for her.” In episode two, she reconnects with her buddy Gordo, who is happily engaged. Episode three is where Hurwitz thinks the problems started.
At the end of the second episode, Lizzie gets a message from her childhood crush, Ethan Craft. Hurwitz says that episode three didn’t end up getting filmed and this is the episode that he thinks Disney had some issues with. “Episode three 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 added, “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.”
You can watch all of Hurwitz’s TikToks here.
(Via E! News)