David Henrie Reveals Wizards Beyond Waverly Place Took ‘Years’ Of Development (Exclusive)

Everything is exactly as it seems. The Wizards Beyond Waverly Place The reboot is finally coming to Disney+ and Disney Channel on October 29, reuniting Disney vets Selena Gomez and David Henrie, who are reprising their roles as beloved sibling duo Alex and Justin Russo, respectively.

In the series, it was intended to be a continuation of Wizards of Waverly Place which ran for five seasons from 2007 to 2012 on Disney Channel, Justin now has a family of his own. He lives a “normal” life with his wife Giada (Mimi Gianopulos) and their two sons Roman (Alkaio Thiele) and Milo (Max Matenko). However, once something mysteriously goes wrong at WizTech, a powerful young wizard named Billie (Janice LeAnn Brown) shows up on her doorstep in need of training. Justin must embrace his past to save all of Wizard World.

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David Henrie and Selena Gomez want new series to be a ‘big, warm hug’

During the Covid pandemic, Henrie and Gomez started teasing that they were working together on a project. Naturally, fans began to speculate what he had to do with it Wizards of Waverly Placebut it wasn’t like that.

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 developed 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’ve been up to since the show ended. Like, every time Selena came to hang out with me and my wife, we’d be talking about the characters , just because we liked it. It was a great experience for us, and we had a great time.

And as the years went by, it kind of snowballed into a place where we went, “I think we’ve got something here.” I think we should do it in front of Disney. And we did it. And then he spent years of development with Disney and that also took time. But there was never a: ‘I have an idea, let’s do a show!’ It really comes from such an organic place and I hope people feel that love when they watch the show. Selena and I really wanted to do a show that was a big, warm hug.”