After more than 30 episodes, Disney+’s “Wizards Beyond Waverly Place” — the follow-up to Disney Channel’s classic sitcom “Wizards of Waverly Place” — has released its four-part series finale, bringing the Russo family’s latest chapter to a close. But according to star and executive producer David Henrie, this may not be the end of the Russos’ story.
“In my mind, I think there is a movie that we should probably do to wrap things up and give us one more exciting chapter,” Henrie tells TVLine. “There’s still one more thing to do.”
That one thing, specifically, is the family wizard competition — a time-honored tradition in which the young members of a magical family compete to see which sibling gets to keep their powers into adulthood. It was a running storyline throughout “Wizards of Waverly Place,” which ended with Alex (Selena Gomez) winning the title, and it began again in the second season of “Wizards Beyond” when Justin’s (Henrie) sons inherited their own magical gifts.
“Justin purposely says at the end [of the finale], ‘Wait, guys, now we’ve got to get on to the family wizard competition,'” Henrie tells TVLine. “The competition is like Jumanji. When you start playing, you’ve got to finish it, right? We started playing with Billy, Roman, and Milo, and we’ve got to finish that.”
Henrie says the “Wizards” team is “taking a break for a minute,” but he does confirm that he has had “some loose conversations about it, so who knows where it will go?” According to Henrie, “we need to see the response to this season, but never say never.”
David Henrie says Wizards Beyond Waverly Place ‘was always headed toward this type of ending’
Even if the series finale does mark the end of “Wizards Beyond Waverly Place,” David Henrie tells TVLine that he’ll be satisfied with the ending they crafted (even if fans are undoubtedly furious about the show’s decision to kill off Gregg Sulkin’s Mason).
“We started the show off purposefully inverting the original show,” Henrie explains. “The original started off with a tight-knit family unit, and this show starts at the opposite place. This show starts with a girl who doesn’t know what family is, and a family that’s running from their past and has secrets. We needed to teach them what it meant to be Russos again, so we always knew we were headed towards this type of ending, and we finally got there three seasons later.”
Were you satisfied with the conclusion of “Wizards Beyond,” or are you hoping for a movie to reveal whether Roman, Milo, or Billie wins the family wizard competition? Grade the finale in our poll below, then drop a comment with your thoughts.
