One of Disney Channel’s biggest hits, Lizzie McGuire, is coming back with a revival at the upcoming streaming platform Disney+. Hilary Duff is set to reprise her title role in the new series, which comes from the original series’ creator Terri Minsky. It is the first project under a new overall deal Minsky has signed with Disney Channel.
In the reimagined version of the sitcom, a sequel to the 2001 Disney Channel series, Lizzie McGuire (Duff) is a 30-year-old millennial navigating life in New York City. Like the original series, it will include the familiar animated version of a young Lizzie who offers up funny, revealing commentary on what 30-year-old Lizzie is really thinking.
Minsky’s original Lizzie McGuire, starring Duff as 13-year-old Lizzie who is trying to fit in and be popular, was a runaway global hit that turned Duff into a teen idol and a triple-platinum-selling music artist. The sitcom, which aired for four seasons, quickly became Disney Channel’s highest-rated series. It spawned a successful feature, The Lizzie McGuire Movie starring Duff, which grossed $55 million at the global box office, and music releases. It also launched Disney’s first consumer products based on a live-action tween TV series that have earned hundreds of millions of dollars for Disney.
Plans for expansion of the Lizzy McGuirefranchise, which included a second movie and an ABC comedy series starring Duff as Lizzie in high school, came to an abrupt halt in 2003 when negotiations between the young actress and Disney fell through.
A decade after the blockbuster success of Lizzie McGuire, Minsky returned to the Disney Channel as the creator/executive producer of the praised 2017 series Andi Mack. She received Emmy nominations for Lizzie McGuire in 2003 and 2004, as well as WGA, BAFTA and Alma awards. Andi Mack received a GLAAD Media Award as well as Peabody and BAFTA nominations. Minsky also created the TV series Less Than Perfect and The Geena Davis Show for ABC and developed Finding Carter for MTV.
Under her new Disney Channel overall deal, she is set to create series and movies for Disney Channel and Disney+, starting with new Lizzie McGuire.She is repped by Rob Goldman at McKuin Frankel Whitehead.
This marks the second Disney Channel blockbuster live-action franchise to get a new series on Disney+, along with High School Musical.
Comments