There’s magic in the air again!
Wizards Beyond Waverly Place, a sequel to the 2007-12 Disney Channel series Wizards of Waverly Place, finds Justin Russo (David Henrie) trying to lead a normal, mortal life with his family.
When his sister Alex (guest star Selena Gomez) brings Billie (Janice LeAnn Brown) to his home seeking help, Justin realizes he must dust off his magical skills to mentor the young wizard while juggling his everyday responsibilities and safeguarding the future of the Wizard World.
Showrunners Jed Elinoff and Scott Thomas (who’d both previously worked on Disney Channel’s Raven’s Home) say the idea for a Waverly follow-up had been in Gomez and Henrie’s minds for a while.
“Their passion for the show is kind of undeniable,” Elinoff says. “And you get swept up in it and you see what they loved about it, what was so important to them about it, and why they’re so proud of the show and have every reason to be. And so then it just became like, ‘Yes, we want to be a part of that!’”
While Henrie’s Justin will be a primary character on Beyond Waverly, Gomez will make guest appearances.
Fans who grew up watching the original Waverly will find a lot to love in Beyond Waverly. Many of those fans might have kids of their own, and bringing the magic and humor to a new generation is the goal.
“We have a few people on our staff who are young enough that they were of age and watched the show when it was on,” Elinoff says. “So they have a really intense operating knowledge of the show. They’re deep in it.”
That knowledge helps when trying to write a scene involving a magic spell with very specific phrases, powers and limitations. “How does the flying carpet work? What do people know? What don’t they know? It is wild to try to live in somebody else’s universe that way and try to expand it,” Elinoff says.
© 2024 Disney. All rights reserved. Credit: Disney/Eric McCandless
Still, they didn’t feel a need to strictly adhere to the rules of the original Waverly universe.
“There is obviously a lot of trying to be very, very respectful to the old show and storylines and the little things that happened in the old show, but we are making a new one and we have to have a little bit of creative freedom to sometimes go, ‘Well, that’s how the spell worked back in the early 2000s. Maybe this is the iPhone 1 vs. the iPhone 16 here. Maybe the spell’s evolved a little bit, so maybe it works a tiny bit different now,’” Thomas explains. “And that’ll be fun to see everyone just call us out on things that are wrong beyond bloopers.”
There are two guest directors this season that are plenty familiar to Disney fans: Raven-Symoné and Danielle Fishel. Their experience as young actors is especially valuable when working with the child stars of Beyond Waverly.
“I think that the biggest thing that both of them bring is that they have been through this before and they have been where these kids are,” Thomas says. “I think the kids get to sort of spend a week with them and see what wisdom they can pass on and what they’ve learned. But I will say that beyond just the directors, David and Selena are also incredible role models for these kids.”
Wizards Beyond Waverly Place, premieres Tuesday, October 29, 8/7c & 8:30/7:30c, streams next day on Disney+
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