[This story includes spoilers from the first episode of Wizards Beyond Waverly Place.]
Everything is not what it seems in the first episode of Wizards Beyond Waverly Place, the sequel series to the iconic Disney Channel series that launched Selena Gomez, David Henrie and Jake T. Austin’s careers.
In the first episode, now streaming on Disney+, Gomez’s Alex surprises Henrie’s Justin with Billie (Janice LeAnn Brown), a young, talented wizard who needs to be taught by the best, aka her big brother and former headmaster of WizTech.
After 30 minutes of Alex trying to convince Justin to take Billie in, as she wreaks havoc on his house, he agrees under one condition: He doesn’t want to teach her in the house. Cue Alex opening up the portal in the mirror that leads to the beloved lair that fans of Wizards of Waverly Place spent so much time watching the Russos practice their magic in during the original series.
However, in the final moments of the episode, the other shoe drops: The fate of the world may be in Billie’s hands, and therefore also in Justin’s by association.
Wizards Beyond Waverly Place co-showrunner Jed Elinoff explains that he and Scott Thomas got the idea for the spinoff from conversations with Gomez and Henrie, who also serve as executive producers.
“There’s this moment in the pilot where she talks about how ‘I had you. I needed you, and I had you in my life,'” Elinoff tells The Hollywood Reporter. “The idea that Selena would go, ‘This little girl needs you, and only you can do this.’ Selena seemed to kind of resonate with that and David that resonated with and it resonated with us, that idea of, ‘Oh, here’s a kid who needs the help of only a Russo.'”
Thomas echoes that sentiment, explaining, “Here’s a kid who needs someone. She doesn’t have anyone in the world. She’s never had anyone who’s really cared about her or taken care of her, and we know the Russos are like that. We know Justin Russo is a caring person, and having Alex bring her to this house and this family, and sort of reignite Justin’s passion for teaching and for teaching wizards. He gets to sort of step into the role that his dad inhabited in the old show.”
Below, the creators open up about what it was like writing for Gomez and Henrie over a decade after they last stepped into these roles; how they balanced telling a story for new fans and old fans alike, including emotional callbacks to Wizards of Waverly Place; and having the new characters carry the story.
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Talk to me about the show in general. Why did you want to be a part of it?
SCOTT THOMAS When they approached us with the idea of sort of rebooting Wizards, we were incredibly excited. It’s such a massive show for Disney and, not only that, but it continues to have such a passionate fanbase. We were coming off of doing six seasons of Raven’s Home, so we had kind of been in this world a little bit of reintroducing beloved characters to a new audience. I think we just saw such a fun opportunity to, not only pay homage to the old show and those characters, but also try and make something new for a new audience.
JED ELINOFF When we met David and Selena the first time, one of the things that was so exciting was how passionate they are about the show, and how much, when you see them together, they have a really familial kind of feeling. They really carry that brother-sister vibe that they had on the show, that extends into life in a lot of ways, and they really care for each other. There was something about them and how much they loved this idea. Speaking kind of for myself, my oldest was a huge fan of the show growing up, and so [it was about] just the opportunity to continue it. These shows are most fun when you feel like you are creating a family. That’s what the theme of this show is — found family. I think the show itself should feel like a family, and that comes from David and Selena, and I think we’ve sensed it in the pilot. So the idea of being able to be a part of that and lend our voices to it a little bit was a great opportunity, and really impossible to sort of pass up. It was exciting and fun.
What was it like writing for them so long after they were last these characters?
ELINOFF They stepped into it immediately. Watching them on the pilot was a riot. Not just us, every person on the stage was like, “This feels like a third-season show. It’s crazy.” Everybody feels comfortable with each other, watching them do their old characters, watching them be together was just such a fun experience and really kind of moving to see them stand there together again.
THOMAS When we started writing the pilot, we really benefited from the fact that we had these two characters who were already established, that we knew everyone already loved. They have very distinct voices and very distinct personalities. So we were just trying to sort of mimic the old show, except now they’re in their 30s. Where would they be in life? It was really fun to write those characters and then create new characters around them. And it was very, very rewarding when we saw them read the script for the first time, and we kind of let out a sigh of relief. And we went, “Oh, good, OK, they like it. We came pretty close to these characters. We did a good job.”
ELINOFF The other part of it, and I do want to make sure we mention it, is that as much as this show is about the old show, it’s about the new characters. Finding Janice [LeAnn Brown] and Alkaio [Thiele] and Max [Matenko] and bringing Mimi [Gianopulos] and Taylor [Cora] really just makes it feel like its own thing, which is so important. We felt that way with Raven’s Home. We feel that way with this, the idea that you’re creating a new show for a new generation of fans, to obviously make sure that fans of the old show feel like we’re doing right by this thing that they love and giving them more of it. But then we want to make sure we’re bringing new people in and seeing these new kids experience: what does it mean to be a wizard in 2024? Which is different, and that’s been sort of the fun and the challenge and do something that’s been on our minds as we’ve done it.
I want to piggyback on that a little bit. Who do you write for, the new fans? The old fans? A little bit of both? How do you go about telling this story that has both original fans and potential new fans?
THOMAS When we approach the stories, we’re writing for the new show, but always with the old show in mind. I think we’re always going, “How do we make this feel like it’s a great companion to the old show?” It is continuing the story. It’s not really a reboot. It’s a continuation of Justin Russo and Alex Russo’s stories. So, we always have that in mind. But I think we also, like Jed said, have these new characters. We have these new actors and we’re going to have an audience that maybe isn’t familiar with the old show. So we always have to go, “How are we taking what was established in in the old show that worked so well, and using that as inspiration for new stories?”
ELINOFF We actually have people on the staff who grew up watching the show. They’re so passionate, and they talk about what was important to them, and so it is important to us to go, “What does it mean to be Justin Russo?” “What is he like as a father?” “What is he like as a wizard instructor?” “What is Alex like as an adult?” We want to show that a family could watch together, that you could sit down with your kids and you would enjoy and go, “This is a family sitcom.” It has magic. Tonally, it’s just like the old show. But our hope is that anyone could sit down and watch it together, and it would be enjoyable, and it would be fun and poignant, and it would have heart and you’d laugh. Because I think that’s the point of a sitcom, and the beauty of making a sitcom. We get to shoot in front of a live audience, which is even more fun because you get to watch these kids, and you get to watch David. We did a live audience of the pilot. It was bananas. It was so great.
Talk to me about the decision to shoot in front of a live audience. Was that made for you, or was it something you all wanted?
ELINOFF We love a live audience. It’s the best.
THOMAS We really pushed for it because the energy is undeniable when you’re shooting a show in front of a live audience, A sitcom is basically putting on a play. You’re shooting with four cameras. You’re running through every scene beginning to end, and then when you put an audience in there, everybody realizes, “It’s show time. This is the performance.”It’s very rewarding. It’s instant gratification that you don’t get on on other shows. When you do it in front of an audience, you get to immediately know if a joke works or doesn’t, or if an emotional moment works or doesn’t.
ELINOFF And there’s nothing better than when you, especially with the younger kids, get that laugh and feel it, or you watch them figure out how to work the audience. Janice’s eyes lit up the first time she got a big laugh in the pilot, and it was just the most adorable thing. It’s impossible not to love.
ELINOFF David is an absolute master at this [type of set]. If you watch him, he is so good at doing it. He’s so funny. He finds laughs where you didn’t think there were. He’s sweet and emotional. He’s exactly the dad you’d imagine him to be, both in real life and on TV. He’s got three kids, and they’re adorable, and he’s just the sweetest dad. And then you see him with his TV kids, and he’s the perfect kind of TV dad. He’s amazing. It’s totally what you hope from Justin and, I will say, Selena is exactly what you expect Alex to be. It’s perfect.
THOMAS They’re both incredible leaders on set, and they’ve been through this. They know what the kids are going through. They know how their lives are going to change when this airs, and they’re so supportive and so caring with these kids, and that’s very, very nice to see.
They’re also executive producers on the show. Did they have any say in the storyline?
ELINOFF Obviously, Selena is a little bit busier, but David, we’re with every week. And David is amazing. He’s got a great story sense. He’s a wonderful creative partner. You don’t always find that when you do these things; he’s just the best to work with. He’s collaborative and additive and couldn’t be more kind. And then he just happens to be hilarious, which is the best part.
THOMAS They both weigh in on stories. We’ll put a story area out, we’ll turn a story area into the network, and David will read it, and he’ll text us and be like, “Hey, you know, I love this but there’s this one moment I feel like we could push this further,” or “this emotionally could land a lot better.” His notes are always spot on.
In the first episode, there are a lot of little callbacks to the original. Right off the bat, you hear the theme song, and then at the end, you see the lair. How did you decide what to include and what to change?
THOMAS We knew there was going to be this huge moment when Selena shows up, and we wanted to make that land as well as possible. But we also knew that we were coming into this at a different stage in Justin Russo’s life and that we were introducing new characters. The kids are gonna carry the show, so that’s why we wanted to start with the new kids and kind of have these moments where old fans will see Justin Russo walk in and you go, “Oh, wow, that’s where he is in life. He’s still the same old Justin Russo.”
We did know that we wanted this big moment where Selena shows up at the door, and when that happened in front of the audience, it was like a two-minute standing ovation. It was crazy. We just had to cut that way down for the episode, and we knew we wanted to see the lair, and that would be a big thing for fans. We didn’t want to get too deep into backstory or sort of boring everybody with big chunks of dialog, but we did want to just pepper in little things so you get a sense of where Alex has been, what she’s been up to, what Justin’s life is, how it’s changed.
ELINOFF A big question with any TV show, whether it’s a continuation like this, or it’s a new show is the why now? Why are we telling this story now? And then when we developed it, we sort of went, well, we know what the trajectory fans saw Justin on when the series ended. He became the headmaster of WizTech. Here was the kind of culmination of this school nerd’s dream to go. He gets to go on and be the principal of his wizard school. So we kind of went, “Well, OK, let’s look in his life and go, ‘Well, why is he still in the mortal world? What’s happened to him?'” And we liked the idea that there would be some reason that Justin wasn’t doing that anymore. So the why now became: here was this new wizard, this new Billie who shows up and is in need of somebody.
This also came out of some of the conversations with David and Selena about when they would talk about where they thought their characters were and the fun of Selena really saying how important David was to her as a brother figure in her life. There’s this moment in the pilot where she talks about how, “I had you. I needed you, and I had you in my life.” And then the idea that Selena would go, “This little girl needs you, and only you can do this.” Selena seemed to resonate with that, David resonated with it and it resonated with us. That idea of, “Here’s a kid who needs the help of only a Russo.” There’s something about being a Russo that was important and made it possible for somebody to overcome odds that they weren’t capable of doing by themselves.
THOMAS Because it is a show about family, and the old show was a show about family and family sticking together, even if you don’t get along, you stand up for your family. That’s how we wanted to approach this. And we’re like, “What’s in what’s a slightly new spin on that?” Well, here’s a kid who needs someone. She doesn’t have anyone in the world. She’s never had anyone who’s really cared about her or taken care of her, and we know the Russos are like that. We know Justin Russo is a caring person, and having Alex bring her to this house and this family, and sort of reignite Justin’s passion for teaching and for teaching wizards. He gets to sort of step into the role that his dad inhabited in the old show. And then, also, Billie gets to learn that the Russos always have your back. When you’re here, you’ve always got someone who’s going to help you.
ELINOFF It’s so baked into the way that David and Selena are with each other, that you kind of go, “Yes, that is a that is an important ethos for the show.” That idea that the Russos always have each other’s back, it sounds crazy, it sounds tropey, but it’s fantastic. Every moment that Billie or Roman or Milo, are struggling, you want to see that. Because I think that’s what people love about the original show. Yes, it’s funny. Yes, it’s fun. It’s crazy. But really that sort of enduring love that they have for each other makes them an incredibly watchable sitcom family, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to preserve here. Janice is wonderful and talented and funny and sparkly and mischievous and impish in all the right ways. But, she is paired with three other fantastic kids in Max and Taylor and Alkaio. They’re so funny in their own ways, and they’re such exciting performers to watch. I don’t want them to get lost in the discussion, because they’re so funny and they elevate the show so much.
In the first few minutes of the pilot, it was revealed that Max went on to expand the Waverly Substation into a billion-dollar company. What were the conversations around what he’d be doing at this point in his life?
THOMAS We liked the idea that Max has gone off and had this amazingsuccessful business life, that Alex has gone off and had these amazing wizard adventures in the Wizard World.
ELINOFF The kid who was probably voted Most Likely to Succeed struggled a little because I think that’s real. And I think we’re now watching Justin reclaim the Justin he always thought he would be, that’s what we’re now going to see through the course of this series and I think that’s a story worth telling.
THOMAS We wanted to give him an arc. So we really wanted to start David’s character in a place where he’s happy. He’s got this amazing family. He loves his job, but there is this part of his life that he’s sort of put in a box and locked away, and he misses it more than he thinks he does. And Alex’s return and bringing Billie into his life sort of opens that box and reminds him how much he loves being a wizard, and how much he loves teaching wizards. That’s been a big sort of arc, especially this season with his character, is sort of reclaiming that passion.
ELINOFF It’s OK to stumble and get up and keep going and kind of find your way again. I think that’s the hardest for a kid who is like Justin, who follows a certain path and thinks it’s all going to be that way. If you’re Type A, there’s nothing harder than not seeing your dreams come true the way you wanted them to. But there’s no better lesson than getting up and facing the world again and getting out there and making it happen. That’s important.
THOMAS Kids are under so much pressure these days in middle school to know what they’re going to do with their lives. And that’s just not how the world works. Some people do know what they’d always want to do. A lot of people don’t. And I think seeing a character who’s in his 30s, who’s a dad, has a family, is a husband and still decides to make a little bit of course correction, and realize that, “Wait a second, that thing that I was passionate about when I was a teenager, I’m still passionate about, Why did I let that go? I’m going to reclaim it. I’m gonna do it.” That’s not only fun for the grown-up audience but also for kids who can be shown that even as an adult, you can figure out your life, you can figure out what you want to do.
ELINOFF By the way, that’s the trick with these shows. David is fun to watch for kids and adults. So making sure that his story is relevant is good, but it’s also not this heavy-handed thing. It’s silly. We have typical monsters and all kinds of crazy stuff.
THOMAS Kids get half of their bodies turned invisible. It’s crazy hijinks as well. It’s really fun.
Jake T. Austin posted a few months ago that he was coming back as Max, and David DeLuise is coming back as Jerry. Is there any hope to reunite the whole family in a scene with Maria Canals-Barrera as well?
THOMAS The absolute hope is that throughout this season and into future seasons, we can bring back everyone at some point and have those great fan moments for fans of the old show. It’s a little bit hard in the first season, because we’re trying to tell stories about the new kids, and we’re trying to forward their stories and establish them as the leads of the show. So we have to be kind of strategic about it. We have to sort of pepper in, like, “Who are we bringing back? When? What’s the episode? Does it make sense to bring them back from a story sense? Are we just doing fan service, or is this really like the story that we need to tell in the limited amount of episodes we have this season?”
ELINOFF Doing it is great, but if it feels false, nobody’s going to appreciate it. So it is, like Scott said, a tightrope between between the original fans and trying to create the new show.
THOMAS But the hope is to have everyone pop in at some point.
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Wizards Beyond Waverly Place launched with a two-episode season premiere earlier this week on the Disney Channel, followed by the first nine episodes now streaming on Disney+. A release date for the remaining episodes of the 21-episode season have yet to be announced.
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