While filming for the planned Disney+ reboot of Lizzie McGuire had already commenced production back in 2019, the revival sadly didn’t come to fruition. Years later, series writer Jonathan Hurwitz began sharing revelations about the sudden cancellation and some details about what could have been.
Now, in another video Hurwitz shared on TikTok, the writer even revealed that Lizzie’s best friend Miranda Sanchez would have been a queer musician on tour with a woman she’s dating.
“We talked a lot about adult Miranda, and her being a musician was part of the discussion, so someone who’s on tour with a band. Her being queer was also part of the discussion, so you likely would have met the woman she’s in a relationship with,” said Hurwitz.
Why was the Lizzie McGuire series reboot canceled?
The canceled Disney+ show, in which Hillary Duff was attached to reprise the iconic role, was — according to Hurwitz — a “show about a 30-year-old woman doing things that 30-year-old women do.”
The writer then revealed that Lizzie would have been a New York-based interior designer living with a gay roommate, a character “loosely based” on the writer. The premiere episode, moreover, was planned to see Lizzie reuniting with the animated version of herself after her boyfriend cheated on her with her best friend. The storyline was apparently not up to Disney’s standards, said Hurwitz.
While there could be plenty of reasons why Disney ended up scrapping the series, Hurwitz thinks that Episode 3 was probably one of the top reasons why Disney was no longer “comfortable” moving the project forward.
“Episode 3 wasn’t filmed, but there was a script for it. 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,” Hurwitz said in a previous TikTok video. “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.”
