Hilary Duff Isn’t Sure The “Lizzie McGuire” Disney+ Series Is Dead Yet
At the last D23 Expo in 2019, Disney announced it was going to be bringing Hilary Duff back for a revival of the Disney Channel show, “Lizzie McGuire”.
This Disney+ original series was going to pick up when Lizzie McGuire was just about to turn 30. She seemingly has it all – her dream job as an assistant to a fancy New York City decorator, her dream guy and a picturesque Brooklyn apartment – but things aren’t always as they seem. With a little help from her friends, her loving family and her 13-year-old alter-ego in animated form, Lizzie navigates the ups and downs of adulthood.
Back in late 2019, the first two episodes of the new show were filmed in New York, but filming was halted when the original “Lizzie McGuire” series creator Terri Minsky left the project due to creative differences. Filming was put on hold and then the pandemic hit, causing more delays. Though we did get to see a few seconds of the series in the 2020 highlights video (but like almost everything in 2020, things didn’t go to plan).
Hilary Duff even went public with her frustrations on the creative decisions being made at Disney. Even asking them to move it to Hulu because “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.”
Unfortunately, the executives and creative forces behind this series just couldn’t get onto the same page and the revival was cancelled. Ironically, since the show was cancelled, Disney+ has shifted its family-friendly focus internationally, though, in the US, Disney+ is still limited with its content for adults.
Recently, Hilary Duff spoke with Cosmopolitan to promote the new Hulu/Star Original series, “How I Met Your Father” and was asked about leaking the filmed episodes:
I like the way you think. I would be lying if I didn’t say I didn’t have those thoughts a few times. But I wouldn’t, because in my 34 years I’ve realized that everything does happen for a reason. There’s a time and a place for everything. It just wasn’t her moment. I’m constantly asked about it still. All it does is breathe life into the fact that people still want it, and that’s really sweet. It’s not dead, and it’s not alive.
She was also asked about the plot of the series, where Hilary Duff revealed:
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 fuck?”
Would you like to see the Lizzie McGuire episodes filmed released?