A Lizzie McGuire Writer Revealed Reboot Plot Details & I Feel Robbed

Lizzie McGuire fans, take out your pitchforks again. More than three years after Hilary Duff announced that Disney+ had scrapped the Lizzie McGuire reboot, one of the show’s writers, Jonathan Hurwitz, revealed new plot details in a TikTok video, and I feel utterly robbed.

Hurwitz first confirmed the revival’s first episode’s premise, which had been previously leaked. Lizzie lives in New York, working as the assistant to an interior designer, and discovers that her chef boyfriend has been cheating on her with her best friend. Devastated, she moves back into her childhood bedroom in California, “where animated Lizzie had been waiting for her.” BRB, I need to stop crying.

Are Lizzie & Gordo Endgame?

In the second episode, she reunites with her BFF Gordo (Adam Lamberg), who’s gone through some major changes of his own, dashing any hope of a romance. “Gordo reveals that he is engaged to a woman, and she's pregnant and they're really happy,” Hurwitz said. “So no, in this version, Lizzie and Gordo would not have ended up together.”

However, Lizzie had a quick rebound, as the episode ended with her getting a text from childhood crush Ethan Craft (Clayton Snyder), whose return had only been hinted at previously. Production on the reboot was halted before they filmed the third episode, but a scene in the script may explain why.

R.I.P. Reboot

In May 2022, Duff told Women’s Health that she thinks Disney+ got “spooked” by the reboot, and they clashed over how mature Lizzie should be. “She had to be 30 years old doing 30-year-old things,” she said. Those 30-year-old things naturally include sleeping with her childhood crush.

The third episode would’ve opened with Lizzie waking up in Ethan’s bed — wearing his water polo T-shirt. “Animated Lizzie pops up, and she has this little checklist—like a to-do list,” Hurwitz said. “Ethan is on the list, and she checks it off. And I think she says something like, ‘Well, checked that box.’ Dramatic pause. ‘Twice.’”

Hurwitz guessed “that moment was probably one of” the storylines that Disney wasn’t comfortable with. However, in a follow-up video, he affirmed that the scene wasn’t all that salacious, and wouldn’t have shown them doing the deed.

“Just Lizzie waking up in Ethan's shirt,” he said. “Then Ethan comes in with freshly made coffee and they have this cute little catch-up... and he wants to hang again, but she says she can't because she's flying home to New York.”

Hope For A Lizzie McGuire Comeback

The rest of the season’s scripts hadn’t been finalized, but there’s still a sliver of hope that they might be finished one day.

In January 2023, Andy Cohen asked Duff, “If the Lizzie McGuire reboot could live up to your vision, would you move forward?” She said “of course” without hesitation, even saying she was “optimistic” about the chances.

Before Lizzie was officially scrapped, Duff pleaded with Disney to move the reboot to Hulu, as she’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.” Now that the platforms are merging, with kid-friendly Disney+ and mature Hulu programs living on the same app, perhaps an agreement can be made.