Millennials long for October nights spent watching Disney Channel’s Halloweentown films and spooky episodes like The Suite Life of Zack & Cody’s “The Ghost in Suite 613.” So it was a gift when, in October 2007, Wizards of Waverly Place premiered, bringing viewers year-round magic. Justin (David Henrie), Alex (Selena Gomez), and Max Russo (Jake T. Austin) were wizards-in-training living in New York City. Their family sub shop hid a lair for their studies and a portal to the wizard world.
Seventeen years later, the spells and potions are back in Wizards Beyond Waverly Place. In this new reboot, premiering Oct. 29 with episodes available the next day on Disney+, Justin has been hiding his wizard past from his wife Giada (Mimi Gianopulos) and their children. On Justin’s 34th birthday, Alex unexpectedly deposits a promising teen wizard named Billie (Janice LeAnn Brown) at Justin and Giada’s Staten Island home. Billie comes from the wizard world and needs both a magic teacher and stable guardians.
While Henrie stars in the series and Gomez recurs, both actors join Scott Thomas and Jed Elinoff as executive producers. Jonas Agin (former vice president of original series at Disney Branded Television) and Gary Marsh (former Disney Branded Television president and CEO) also executive produce.
In the new series, the classic wizards’ lair was rebuilt and relocated to Justin’s home. “It was like going back into a dream. I’d imagine it’s like going back into a childhood classroom,” Henrie tells The Daily Beast’s Obsessed. The portal door’s mesmerizing purple windowpanes have a special glimmer to them. Red sofas from the circa-2000s lair were plucked from a warehouse, flooding Henrie with memories of “sitting on those couches, and napping at times, too.”
New memories are being created by the young cast, including Henrie’s TV sons. Played by Alkaio Thiele, eldest brother Roman is cut from the same rule-following cloth as Justin. Max Matenko delivers Milo’s refreshing candor, like his confession that he “tried out a rude hand gesture” while invisible. “I didn’t point it at anyone, but I tried it.” Fair.
Casting directors saw thousands of young women for the central role of Billie. Janice LeAnn Brown is crafting the character as a dash of Alex’s “sass” and “attitude” with a bit of herself mixed in, Brown says. “When we met Janice, we were like, ‘This girl is special,’” co-executive producer Jed Elinoff tells Obsessed. “She sparkles, she’s talented, she’s winning. You root for her.”
Taylor Cora plays Winter, the Harper Finkle to Billie’s Alex Russo, if you will. Cora watched Jennifer Stone portray Harper in one Wizards of Waverly Place episode, but she took care to craft Winter’s personality independent of Stone’s character. “I realize even as I try not to get influenced by Harper, I kind of act like her anyway,” Cora explains.
Cora says it is “an honor” to carry on the Wizards universe and tells Obsessed she is “blessed,” adding, “I really love being a part of this specific franchise just because of the magic and the physical comedy parts of it, because it’s a real fun experience and it’s something that I’ve never really done before.”
Brown grew up loving Disney Channel franchises like Descendants and High School Musical. On a note that connects with Billie’s vulnerability, Brown shares, “When I got the role, I was going through a lot of self-doubt and everything, so I kind of feel like my prayers were answered and the timing was just crazy.”
Each episode opens with a fresh rendition of the theme song “Everything Is Not What It Seems.” The original Wizards version was performed by Gomez. Brown sings vocals alongside Gomez for the remake.
The Disney Channel DNA is felt throughout the new show: theme song performed by a lead actor, big physical comedy, zany situations like getting stuck inside a villainous pumpkin on Halloween. The pumpkin scene, with its gourd guts and seeds, calls to mind a That’s So Raven episode where Raven is trapped in a giant stomach model at a digestion exhibit.
The key element Wizards and Raven share, which has also been the crux of many Disney sitcoms: A secret that is out of this world, in one way or another. “It’s very primal,” Henrie says. “I think all of us have a side of ourselves we maybe aren’t comfortable with or we’re keeping hidden.”
Luckily, Elinoff and Thomas are well-versed in the sitcom-with-a-secret, including the time travel storylines on Disney Channel’s Best Friends Whenever and the psychic visions on Raven’s Home. “We wind up doing a lot of shows that have a big supernatural element of some kind,” says Elinoff. These series offer “fantasy fulfillment” by answering the question, “What if I had this one thing about me that was a little bit special, that could make my life chaotic and make my life fun?”
“We like taking a big concept and then grounding it with very relatable characters and relatable everyday situations,” Thomas adds, as the priority is to show what families and friends go through together.
Brown highlights the “found family” aspect that viewers will see in Wizards Beyond Waverly Place. “There may be kids that were adopted and may have had family issues, or some kids out there who may feel alone, or even some adults, who [maybe] went through a really rough childhood or something, feeling alone,” she says.
Disney Channel is progressive in how it’s portrayed different family dynamics on its shows over the years. Zack and Cody’s parents were divorced on the Suite Life series. The Phillips siblings on So Weird and the Stewarts on Hannah Montana knew what it was like to lose a parent. Blended families became more common on Life with Derek and Dog with a Blog. Larger families were depicted on Good Luck Charlie and Stuck in the Middle. Best friends raised their kids together on the first four seasons of Raven’s Home. “Found family” is, indeed, an important concept to share with young fans.
“It’s only worth doing if we can come up with a good story to tell, because otherwise, it’s not going to feel real. It’s not going to connect with anybody,” Elinoff says. “Or it might just be more episodes of the old show, and we knew that we couldn’t recapture that, and we didn’t want to even try,” Thomas continues.
For the Wizards Beyond Waverly Place reboot, the creative team dreamed up new takes on magic and mythology that reflect the way the world has changed since the show last aired, taking advantage of updated special effects. “Maybe this is the iPhone 16 version of this spell,” Thomas explains. “So maybe it’s a little different from the way you saw it in the past one, but it’s still the same spell.” Alex references the cerebellum erasus spell from the original series, but maybe Billie will now try to conjure up memory erasure another way.
Clearly, there is curiosity around Wizards Beyond, as Deadline reported that the show’s trailer was Disney Channel’s most-viewed for a comedy series. Perhaps there is a sweet spot of young millennials and zillennials planning to tune in on Disney+.
“My goal here was to try to recreate the magic of the original show and make something where the original fan would feel like they were given a big, warm hug,” Henrie says. He adds that it was not his or Gomez’s desire to present an “edgy, dark, R-rated adult version.” They instead chose to “pass the wand” to a new generation, and Henrie hopes grown-up viewers will do the same by introducing kids in their lives to the Wizards world. Elinoff says of Gomez and Henrie, “This comes from their passion. They were the ones who wanted to do this again.”
Wizards Beyond Waverly Place is fertile ground for stories that traverse the mortal and immortal realms with both new characters and returning fan favorites. We know Jerry Russo (David DeLuise) will be back, and Gregg Sulkin, who played werewolf Mason Greyback, visited the set. What will we discover about Alex’s life as a wizard? Will we learn what became of Justin’s vampire girlfriend, Juliet (Bridgit Mendler), and how he ended up with Giada? What about Max and the sub shop? Henrie says there will be a lot that fans discover about Justin’s past life.
Whether viewers are kids surfing Disney+ or adults looking for a little nostalgic magic, Henrie hopes Wizards Beyond delivers. “At the end of the day, the heart is what carries you through the story,” he says. “The magic, the hijinks, the mechanisms, the MacGuffins, all that stuff, those are just tools. But if they’re not brought to life by heart, then you don’t care.”
Elinoff notes that even endless magic has its limits. “You can’t say ‘I’m sorry’ with it. You can’t say ‘I love you’ with it. You can’t say ‘I’ve got your back’ with it. That’s not magic. That’s just heart. That’s just being a human.”
