Lizzie McGuire and Ethan Craft?!??!

A writer on the canceled Lizzie McGuire revival revealed some of the series' storylines and we've been fucking robbed.

By Lauren Tousignant  |  January 18, 2024 | 2:55pm
Lizzie McGuire and Ethan Craft?!??!
Hilary Duff and Clayton Travis Snyder as Lizzie McGuire and Ethan Craft in The Lizzie McGuire Movie in 2003. Photo:Shutterstock

There have been very few moments in my adult life that were as heartbreaking and infuriating as when Hilary Duff announced in 2020 that the Lizzie McGuire reboot on Disney+ would not be moving forward. My 10-year-old heart broke, my (then) 30-year-old heart broke, and my we’ve-been-in-a-pandemic-lockdown-for-10-fucking-months-and-this-is-the-news-we-get?! brain had a mental breakdown. Before you get excited, no, the reboot is still not moving forward. We’ve just learned details about what the show was going to be before Disney+ let boring, prude idiots cancel it. And I am heartbroken, angry, and about to have a mental breakdown all over again.

Jonathan Hurwitz, a writer on the canceled revival, said that adult Lizzie was living in New York City as an interior designer with a hot chef boyfriend…who ends up cheating on her with her best friend. The betrayal sends her home to California and back to her childhood bedroom, where animated Lizzie is still hanging out. “They [Disney] greenlit a show about a 30-year-old woman, so we wrote a show about a 30-year-old woman doing things that 30-year-old women do,” Hurwitz says in a TikTok video. And the 30-year-old women things Disney apparently couldn’t stomach were Lizzie having consensual, adult sex. (With Ethan Craft!!!!!) God forbid.

“Episode 3 wasn’t filmed, but there was a script for it,” Hurwitz said, also revealing that the first two episodes were already done when Disney pulled the plug. “Lizzie wakes up in Ethan’s [Clayton Travis Snyder] 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.” First off, fuck you Disney. Second off, oh my god?!?!?!?!?!

He 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.” Truly, get over yourself, Disney.

@jonathanhurwitz

Replying to @kujorg Consider the ☕️ spilled 🤭 #lizziemcguire #lizziemcguirereboot #hilaryduff #arianagrande #bangs #greenscreen

♬ original sound – jonathanhurwitz


For Gordo fans (the two shared a little kiss at the end of the 2003 movie, in case you forgot), the two would have stayed in touch throughout their 20s but when Lizzie returns to California, Gordo tells her he’s engaged and about to have a baby. So all I’m hearing is that Gordo’s storyline should have more than satisfied Disney’s dumb need for some wholesome (ie: sex-negative) content. Stuffy corporate assholes, we were fucking robbed.

“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,” Duff wrote on Instagram in February 2020, when the reboot was put on hold. “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.” For what it’s worth Disney+, I would one million percent pay like 20 bucks a month to subscribe to your stupid streaming service to watch Lizzie finally hook up with her high school crush. So, I don’t know, give that a thought.

Until then, is it better to have learned the details of the reboot and still not get the reboot than never to have learned the details about the reboot at all? No.