Hilary Duff has returned to television in the Hulu hit series, How I Met Your Father. The series has already been renewed for a second season on the Disney-owned streamer, but the failed Lizzie McGuire reboot might be the shining light to her recent success.
The Disney+ reboot of Lizzie McGuire was announced at D23 in 2019 and went into production just weeks later. Sadly, the studio pumped the breaks when they let go of showrunner Terri Minsky, a decision that didn’t go over too well with Duff.
While speaking with Women’s Health, Duff shed some light on why Disney was so shy about developing a mature continuation to the Disney Channel series, but mind you, we have seen this work with iCarly‘s more mature continuation on Paramount+.
“She had to be 30 years old doing 30-year-old things,” Hilary Duff says she insisted, pushing for a more mature Lizzie. “She didn’t need to be doing bong rips and having one-night stands all the time, but it had to be authentic. I think they got spooked.”
Earlier this year, Duff stated that she believes there is still a slim chance for the series to happen again sometime in the future, saying, “I don’t think it’s dead, and I don’t think it’s alive. I think it’s just kind of sitting there… [At first,] I was like, ‘No, thank you,’, and then one day, I was like, ‘Yup.’ There’s much love there. There’s always struggle with something that’s so loved and important to so many people, I just keep my heart and my mind open. I don’t think that ‘How I Met Your Father’ would’ve come about if ‘Lizzie’ had happened.”
Lalaine Vergara-Paras (Miranda Sanchez), Adam Lamberg (“Gordo”), and Clayton Snyder (Ethan Craft) were set to reprise their roles, as was the rest of Lizzie’s family Hallie Todd, Robert Carradine, and Jake Thomas reprising their roles as Jo, Sam, and Matt McGuire.
