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On Friday, January 26, the cast of Wizards Of Waverly Place shared their mini-reunion photos on Instagram, featuring star Selena Gomez, and her cast of co-stars David Henrie, David DeLuise, and Maria Canals-Barrera.
It was announced this month that a pilot for a sequel to the Disney series had been greenlit, according to Deadline. Gomez will be guest starring, but the new show centers on Henrie as he becomes Justin Russo once more. In the original, Justin is the older brother to Gomez’s Alex Russo, while DeLuise and Canals-Barrera played their parents.
The new pictures featured the OG family smiling for the camera, with the caption, “The Russos ❤️coming back #wizardsofwaverlyplace @wizardspod.”
There were more pics on Canals-Barrera’s page, where she wrote, “You guys are gonna LOVE the new Wizards show!”
As the Russos have grown up, they’ve expanded the family and are being joined by new cast members Janice LeAnn Brown, Alkaio Thiele, and Mimi Gianopulos. Gomez appeared in another picture on Henrie’s timeline with the kids, where he wrote, “The Russo’s have grown ;)”
According to a synopsis, Henrie’s character is now an adult with a wife and kids who isn’t doing much magic anymore. But events conspire to drag him back to the wizarding life. The original Disney channel show ran from 2007 through 2012, with a 2009 made-for-TV film called Wizards Of Waverly Place: The Movie. There was also a television special in 2013 called The Wizards Return: Alex vs. Alex.
In 2023, Gomez appeared on the Wizards Of Waverly Pod podcast hosted by David DeLuise and Jennifer Stone, and reflected on her time performing on the series.
“I can’t imagine it any other way,” she said. “I remember being nervous, but as long as David [DeLuise] was there, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m good.’ At the beginning, I was like, ‘Well, I just don’t want a new family.’ I felt like I bonded with everyone. Little did I know that I ended up with everyone I needed to be in my life. I think I felt safe, and that’s a really hard thing for me to feel.”
She added, “You guys genuinely loved me, and that’s all I could have asked for, the unconditional trust and bond we had, I miss so much…I felt like I was the happiest I had been my whole life, and I don’t want that to be a sad thought, because I’m really grateful and happy, but it was definitely the happiest times for me. I recognize that obviously it’s because I have this different attention on me that I just didn’t have then, and that was a really pure time, and I miss that.”
Aimée Lutkin is the weekend editor at ELLE.com. Her writing has appeared in Jezebel, Glamour, Marie Claire and more. Her first book, The Lonely Hunter, will be released by Dial Press in February 2022.