'Lizzie McGuire' Revival Canceled: What Went Wrong?

The highly anticipated Lizzie McGuire revival is not headed to Disney+. But what caused the cancellation? A lot went down behind-the-scenes, according to star Hilary Duff.

The actress played the title role in the original series, which aired from 2001 to 2004, and in The Lizzie McGuire Movie. News that the beloved character and her cartoon counterpart would be returning to TV first broke during the D3 Expo in August 2019.

“I’ve been trying to contain this excitement for a long time while this has been in the works!” Hilary captioned an Instagram post at the time. “I am beyond excited to be home again, back with my girl.”

The reimagined version of the show was set to follow Lizzie, now an adult, as she lives her life in New York City. “She’s getting ready to celebrate her 30th birthday,” Hilary teased to Variety in August 2019. Original cast members Jake Thomas (Matt McGuire), Hallie Todd (Jo McGuire), Robert Carradine (Sam McGuire) and Adam Lamberg (Gordo) were all set to return with production on the show starting in October 2019.

Then, in January 2020, the show was put on hold after original creator, Terri Minsky, stepped away from the revival.

“Fans have a sentimental attachment to Lizzie McGuire and high expectations for a new series,” Disney said in a statement to Variety at the time. “After filming two episodes, we concluded that we need to move in a different creative direction and are putting a new lens on the show.”

A month later, Hilary took to Instagram and encouraged the network to consider a more mature version of the show.

“Was incredibly excited to launch Lizzie on D+ and my passion remains! However, I feel a huge responsibility to honor the fans’ relationship with Lizzie, who, like me, grew up seeing themselves in her. I’d be doing a disservice to everyone by limiting the realities of a 30-year-old’s journey to live under the ceiling of a PG rating,” she wrote in February 2020. “It’s important to me that just as her experiences as a preteen/teenager navigating life were authentic, her next chapters are equally as real and relatable. It would be a dream if Disney would let us move the show to Hulu, if they were interested, and I could bring this beloved character to life again.”

Throughout the rest of 2020, Hilary gave updates on the show in various interviews. “There’s still no, like, ‘For sure, this is happening,'” the Younger actress explained to Cosmopolitan U.K. in September 2020. Then, in December of that year, she shared a lengthy social media post announcing that the revival had officially been canceled.

“I’ve been so honored to have the character of Lizzie in my life. She has made such a lasting impact on many, including myself. To see the fans’ loyalty and love for her, to this day, means so much to me. I know the efforts and conversations have been everywhere trying to make a reboot work but, sadly and despite everyone’s best efforts, it isn’t going to happen,” Hilary wrote. “I want any reboot of Lizzie to be honest and authentic to who Lizzie would be today. It’s what the character deserves. We can all take a moment to mourn the amazing woman she would’ve been in 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. Hey now, this is what 2020s made of.”

Scroll through our gallery for everything Hilary has said about the show’s cancellation.

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A Possibility for the Future

“It’s not dead and it’s not alive,” the actress updated fans during an episode of The Cut Podcast in March 2022, per E! News. “I think there’s always possibility there. And like, if she’s 40, I don’t think people care. It’s always going to be somewhat interesting to people to see where she ended up.”

Hilary added: “I don’t really love to talk about this because the Internet seems to explode whenever Lizzie stuff is brought up.”

Lizzie in the Revival

“My character was moving back home with her parents because she caught her soon-to-be fiancé cheating on her, and she was falling flat on her face at the moment and being like, ‘I need to pivot because everything that I thought was wasn’t, and I’m turning 30. What the f–k?'” Hilary told Cosmopolitan in January 2022 of what Lizzie would have been like in the revival.

Looking Back at Lizzie

In March 2021, Hilary spoke with Good Morning America and revealed what 30-year-old Lizzie would have been like.

“I think she would be quirky, I think that she would struggle with confidence, but I think at the end of the day, she finds her footing,” the Disney Channel alum said. “That’s what’s so lovely about her, and that’s what so relatable is that she doesn’t have all the answers right away, but she’s on the right path.”

The Network Battle

“Well, that’s kind of been the battle. Like, I don’t want to call it a battle cause everyone’s on very, like, loving terms between, you know, me and Disney, but that’s been the thing,” she said during a May 2021 interview on the Jess Cagle Show. “I think they were really trying to figure out what kind of content they want living on Disney+, and that doesn’t totally align with, like, where I see Lizzie right now, you know. And I’m, like, very protective of her, and they’re very protective of her.”

Loving Lizzie

During the same interview, Hilary explained that it was fun to play that character in adulthood — even for a short period of time.

“It was, like, lovely to relive that even for three weeks of my life, because, you know, there was a point in my life where I couldn’t stand Lizzie McGuire,” she explained. “And I was like, ‘I don’t want to hear that name ever again.’ And now that I’m my age, I’m like, ‘I love her.’ She’s, you know, this is where it all began for me. And she is, she is me and I am her. And I brought what I could to that, you know, which was very much just who I am inside. And so to tap into that again, even for a moment was, was really a great experience.”

What the Original Cast Said

“I’m sad. We had the best time when we got together for those two episodes. It felt like no time had passed, except that all of a sudden these kids were adults. It just seems ridiculous. There’s always more to it than you hear, and I certainly am not privy to those conversations in the back room,” Hallie Todd told Vice in January 2021.

Jake Thomas added, “When I walked onto the set of the rebuilt McGuire house for the reboot, it felt like such an unreal homecoming, an overwhelming childhood nostalgia. It saddens me greatly that the fans don’t get to share in that feeling.”

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