Lizzie McGuire is back, baby!
With the news announced at Disney’s D23 Expo back in August, we thought we’d gather up all the info we could find out about the rebooted series. Posting on Instagram after the big announcement, Hilary wrote that she had “been trying to contain this excitement for a loooong time while this has been in the works!”
She continued: “I am beyond excited to be home again, back with my girl ♥️…and into her 30s”.
What’s the premise?
The rebooted Lizzie McGuire series will pick up with Lizzie, her family and friends, and be focused on a 30-year-old Lizzie who’s trying to make it in the big city (New York, duh). She’ll be living in Brooklyn and working as an apprentice interior designer, buuuuut, it’s not just the Lizzie McGuire version of Younger.
In fact, the show’s not even staying in NYC.
“She’s not going to stay in Brooklyn too long, actually. That’s where she’s been, but she’ll be coming back to Los Angeles. She’s forced out of New York. She’s like, ‘I can’t be here anymore,’” Hilary revealed in a recent interview with Vulture.
So what can we expect? Well, in an interview with E! last month, Hilary gave us a few tidbits about what Lizzie’s life at 30 will look like when we tune back in.
“For me, coming back when she’s 30 and she’s not in a marriage and she’s not having a baby and she’s not doing all the things that I have already done in my life, that story is really exciting for me,” Hilary explained. “I think to myself, ‘Where can we go? What are the struggles of a 30-year-old right now? What are the pressures that life throws in front of a woman who is 30 and doesn’t have all the things yet?’”
She mused: “The opportunities are really endless. Maybe at the end of the series we see her having a baby? You know, maybe it’s hard for her to get pregnant? Maybe there is something bad happening on her 30th birthday in the first episode? Maybe she’s going to be in her childhood bedroom in the first episode? I don’t know! There’s all this fun! We want to give fans what they want, but we also want to have a completely new show.”
Another important tidbit: Lizzie will be engaged to a SoHo restaurateur when the show begins, and not to Gordo. Eep!
Is everyone coming back?
So far, all the actors in Lizzie’s family have signed on to be in the reboot, so we don’t have to brace ourselves for any awkwardly written explanations for a missing McGuire, or pretend that one of them got an entirely different face as they got older after being recast. Phew!
Terri Minsky, who created the original series, is also returning as showrunner, so we imagine this will mean that the reboot looks and feels true to the OG Lizzie.
As for LaLaine and Adam Lamberg — who played Lizzie’s BFFs, Miranda and Gordo, in the original — there’s no word yet on whether they’ll be co-starring or returning to the series. In an interview with Vulture, Hilary said that she’ll be keeping her fingers crossed for at least Gordo to return, perhaps to tie up some of those loose ends we’ve been left with for literal years.
“I feel like them not being together is what was so good,” she said. “It’s that one person that you’re like, Was he the one? Is it ever going to be? You’re always kind of wondering. We wanted it to hurt everyone a little bit, and it’ll continue to hurt. I really hope he’s going to be involved. We’ve been planning out the season and coming up with what everything looks like, and it’s so important for him to be there for part of it.”
Oh, and don’t worry. Cartoon Lizzie is also returning, as well as Lizzie’s OG crush, Ethan Craft, who’s played by Clayton Snyder.
“He is hot. He’s very hot,” Hilary told People. “I’m pretty sure there’s going to be, there’s going to be a thing.”
When’s it returning?
Next year! They’re filming it at the moment, and Hilary shared this photo from the set, giving us a glimpse at Lizzie’s style as an adult.
Where can you watch it
Disney+! The rebooted series will be exclusive to Disney’s own streaming platform, which launches this month.