Everything is exactly what it seems. The Wizards Beyond Waverly Place reboot is finally hitting Disney+ and Disney Channel on October 29th, reuniting Disney vets Selena Gomez and David Henrie who are reprising their roles as the beloved sibling duo Alex and Justin Russo, respectively.
In the series, meant to be a continuation of Wizards of Waverly Place which ran for five seasons from 2007-2012 on Disney Channel, Justin now has a family of his own. He lives a “normal” life with his wife Giada (Mimi Gianopulos) and two sons Roman (Alkaio Thiele) and Milo (Max Matenko). However, once something goes mysteriously awry at WizTech, a young, powerful wizard named Billie (Janice LeAnn Brown) shows up at his door in need of training. Justin must embrace his past in order to save all of Wizard World.
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David Henrie & Selena Gomez Want New Series To Be a “Big, Warm Hug”
During the Covid pandemic, Henrie and Gomez began teasing that they were working on a project together. Naturally, fans began speculating that it had to do with Wizards of Waverly Place, but that wasn’t the case.
Henrie told ComicBook during the Wizards Beyond Waverly Place press junket that their reminiscing conversations about the past eventually began to snowball into ideas for a show. From there, it was pitched and went into development with Disney where Henrie admits it stayed “for years.” The revival was officially announced in January.
“Yeah, I mean, honestly, we’ve been talking about our characters and what they were up to since the show ended. Like, whenever Selena would come over to hang out with me and my wife, we would be talking about the characters, just because we loved it. It was a great experience for us, and we had fun with that.
And as the years went on, it kind of just snowballed into a place where we went, ‘I think we got something here.’ I think we should do this in front of Disney. And we did. And then it went into years of development with Disney and that took time as well. But there was never like a, ‘I have an idea, let’s make a show!’ It really came from such an organic place and I hope people feel that love when they when they watch the show. Selena and I really wanted to make a show that would be a big, warm hug.”