New 'Wizards of Waverly Place' Movie Rumors: Creator Talks 'More High-Budget, Mature Full-Fledged Theatrical'
It has been a decade since "Wizards of Waverly Place" introduced to fans the Russo family. Now, series creator Todd J. Greenwald has expressed interest in bringing the franchise back in some way, shape or form.
In an interview with International Business Times, Greenwald talked extensively about his ideas to revive the series as a movie and even a prequel series.
While he knows that bringing the cast together for a new iteration of a "Wizards of Waverly Place" is just not possible at this point, he hopes that they could reunite for a "full-fledged theatrical."
Get Our Latest News for FREE
No one has time to do a full series about this anymore. It was a great time in our lives, a time to acknowledge and move on.
He imagines that this "Wizards of Waverly Place" movie will be "definitely mature" since the actors who played the young wizards Alex, Justin and Max — Selena Gomez, David Henrie (who recently got married) and Jake T. Austin — are just "too mature" for a series.
Definitely just not the same "Wizards" we're used to. It's the same characters, but it's much more high-budget, mature and that would be cool. Definitely PG-13.
Greenwald says that this "Wizards of Waverly Place" movie will be set in modern times and will focus on a grand-scale crisis:
I mean, obviously, it would have to be some big, end-of-the-universe thing that Alex and Justin would be saving, or not. But playing with the time-space continuum is always fun, but treacherous. Just to see them older.
He adds that the "Wizards of Waverly Place" movie will show what has happened to the Russos since the wizard competition:
Does Alex have kids or not? Is Justin still at WizTech? Is Max still at the substation? Do we even age it up and say that Jerry (David DeLuise) and Theresa (Maria Canals-Barrera]) got a divorce? You can go there.
Greenwald is keen on making the "Wizards of Waverly Place" movie happen, but it will be a challenge to bring everybody back for it, which is something that he deems a prerequisite.
An A-list director and it would take everyone on board being back, not just two people. Because that's the way I feel to do it the right way. It would take everybody agreeing to come back.
Greenwald also hoped to bring "Wizards of Waverly Place" as a prequel series set in the wizard world that will follow the journey of a young Jerry and his siblings, who were introduced at some point in the original's four-year run that ended in 2012.
However, he revealed that Disney is not interested especially since Gomez and Henrie are unlikely to come back for it.
