If you’re a 90s kid who grew up watching Disney channel, then Lizzie McGuire was probably your jam, butter and kaya. It certainly was mine. I was obsessed with the sitcom, had a massive crush on Hillary Duff, the actress who plays the iconic character, and leapt out of my seat and squealed like a little kid when Lizzie and Gordo kissed on the balcony in The Lizzie McGuire Movie!
So, one can only imagine how excited I was when it was announced that the series would be getting a reboot/sequel for Disney+ centred around Lizzie McGuire in her 30s starring Duff and created by original showrunner Terri Minsky. The show would focus on an adult Lizzie and thus deal with more adult subjects and would have an adult tone. Everyone apparently liked this idea, including the executives at Disney, obviously, or else it wouldn’t have been greenlit in the first place. But after two episodes wrapped up, things started to get really messy.
Showrunner Terri Minsky was abruptly fired in January and the entire production came to a screeching halt. Disney began finding for her replacement immediately. According to Variety, the studio said:
We paused production on Lizzie McGuire a few weeks ago to allow time for some creative re-development. Our goal is to resume production and to tell an authentic story that connects to the millions who are emotionally invested in the character, and a new generation of viewers too.
Based on the quote above, if the show were to come to fruition it’s probably going to be something drastically different from what Minsky and Hillary Duff initially had in mind. Minsky said:
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I am so proud of the two episodes we did. Hilary has a grasp of Lizzie McGuire at 30 that needs to be seen. It’s a wonderful thing to watch. I would love the show to exist, but ideally I would love it if it could be given that treatment of going to Hulu and doing the show that we were doing. That’s the part where I am completely in the dark. It’s important to me that this show was important to people. I felt like I wanted to do a show that was worthy of that kind of devotion.
I think it’s safe to deduce that the “treatment of going to Hulu” Minsky is referring to is Disney’s decision to move the Love, Simon series from Disney+ to Hulu (also owned by Disney). The studio felt that the series centred around LGBTQ characters and politics isn’t family-friendly enough to be on Disney+ which is, of course, silly but that’s a conversation for another day.
Instead of firing Minsky and opting to take a different creative direction, Disney should have parked the series on Hulu and allowed her and Hillary Duff to carry out their vision as planned.
