Hilary Duff’s ‘Lizzie McGuire’ Co-Star Jake Thomas On Revival Series “Falling Apart”: “It Was Bad Timing”

It’s been over five years since the Lizzie McGuire revival series was officially scrapped, and Jake Thomas is weighing in.

The former Disney Channel actor who played Hilary Duff’s little brother Matt in the comedy explained why the sequel series didn’t move forward.

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“Sometimes that just happens,” Thomas told E! News. “It was bad timing with everything. It was right at the beginning of COVID.”

The sequel series was announced during the Disney D23 Expo in 2019 and was being developed for the new Disney+ streaming service. However, the original series’ creator, Terri Minsky, stepped down in January 2020. Duff took to social media to ask Disney to move the series to Hulu, allowing the character to live more authentically to her age.

Despite the series being canceled altogether, Thomas finds it “crazy how embedded Lizzie McGuire has become within a millennial culture as something that we’re still referencing today,” adding, “It blows my mind, and I’m thankful for that.”

The revival series would’ve brought back the original cast members, and in 2024, one of the writers of the series revealed that two episodes were filmed. Jonathan Hurwitz said in a TikTok video that the first episode found Lizzie living in New York City as an interior designer. Lizzie soon finds out her chef boyfriend is cheating on her with her best friend, which prompts her to return to her childhood home in California, where animated Lizzie is waiting for her.

Hurwitz noted that Episode 3 didn’t end up getting filmed, and believed this was the episode that Disney might have had some issues with.

“Episode 3 wasn’t filmed, but there was a script for it,” Hurwitz said. “Lizzie wakes up in Ethan’s bed, in his water polo t-shirt. Animated Lizzie pops up and she has this little checklist, like a to-do list, and Ethan is on the list and she checks it off.”

Hurwitz continued, “I think she says something like, ‘I checked that box –dramatic pause– twice.’ So if I had to guess, I saw another comment about certain storylines [about] why Disney wasn’t comfortable with it, my guess was… that moment was probably one of them.”

In an interview on Watch What Happens Live in 2023, Duff continued to be optimistic about the revival getting another shot, saying the show “lived up to her vision.” She added, “Disney+ was very new and I think they were figuring out their… and we were figuring out our… and I am optimistic.”

Since the launch of Disney+, the lines between Disney’s streaming platforms have been blurred. Subscribers of both services can see Hulu’s content within the Disney+ app. Shows not necessarily Disney+ friendly, like The Kardashians, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Only Murders in the Building, are available on the Disney+ platform for those with the bundle.

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