Here's Why Miranda Cosgrove Thinks iCarly Could Help Revive Lizzie McGuire

Miranda Cosgrove gets to see her iconic childhood character as a grownup now, and she has the same wish for Hilary Duff. The actor pulled off a pretty impressive task in convincing producers to lean into more adult themes for a mature version of iCarly, something that the recently scrapped Lizzie McGuire reboot was sadly unable to do. In fact, the Lizzie McGuire reboot’s cancellation spurred on Cosgrove’s biggest fears about iCarly’s big return. Now, Miranda Cosgrove hopes iCarly’s success can help the Lizzie McGuire reboot get another chance at telling a grown-up story.

Cosgrove opened up about how important it was for Carly to be an adult in iCarly’s reboot in a July 7 Bustle profile. She revealed the new series was originally pitched as another kids’ show, with Carly and her brother Spencer running a Hype House for young influencers, but none of the stars were fans of that approach. “I don’t think that any of us would have been up for that,” Cosgrove said. “What excited me about doing iCarly again was getting to put the characters in situations that we couldn’t show before.”

For the cast, it was important that the iCarly reboot be an adult series telling mature stories that the Nickelodeon version never could. After pitching this to ViacomCBS and production company AwesomenessTV, Cosgrove was surprised that execs were into the idea, and thus the new iCarly was born.

If this situation sounds a bit familiar, it’s probably because a similar thing happened with the planned Lizzie McGuire reboot last year, but with very different results. Disney+ announced a revival of the early-2000s series at the end of 2019, but the project was mysteriously put on hold shortly thereafter. Following showrunner Terri Minsky’s departure due to creative differences and the pilot script reportedly containing a sexy scandal, it became clear that the revival was likely shelved due to Disney disagreeing with its more “adult” direction. Duff all but confirmed these suspicions in March 2020 in an open letter to Disney asking for the show to move to Hulu, writing, "I’d be doing a disservice to everyone by limiting the realities of a 30-year-old’s journey to live under the ceiling of a PG rating."

Sadly, the plea did not work, and Disney+ officially canceled the Lizzie McGuire reboot at the end of 2020.

It’s hard to ignore the similarities between the Lizzie McGuire reboot’s story and that of the iCarly reboot. Cosgrove said she was “bummed” to learn of Disney canceling Lizzie McGuire’s revival series, presumably because of the adult direction it had taken, and that worried her when trying to convince studios to take a similar direction for iCarly. Thankfully, the iCarly did not suffer a similar fate. Cosgrove hopes the show’s success can possibly help producers look at that shelved Lizzie McGuire revival in a new light.

“Hopefully [iCarly] will do well, and maybe they’ll let Lizzie McGuire be what it was supposed to be,” Cosgrove told Bustle. “Because I would love to see that.”