‘Wizards Beyond Waverly Place’ Ending After Season 3

The Disney Channel’s revival of Wizards of Waverly Place, which features Selena Gomez as an executive producer and occasional guest star, is finishing up soon.

Disney has revealed that the third season of Wizards Beyond Waverly Place will be its final one. This return will be presented as a four-part event, airing on both Disney Channel and Disney+. This is a much shorter season compared to previous ones, which featured 21 episodes in the first season and 10 in the second.

Selena Gomez, known for her role as Alex Russo on the Disney Channel show Wizards of Waverly Place, will be both a guest star and the director of the first episode of the new season.

Disney says in this season…

Still heartbroken over Alex’s disappearance, Billie learns she must find her estranged father to save her mother. While the family searches for Alex, Billie discovers that working together is the Russos’ only hope against the dark forces threatening them.

If you’re not caught up on Wizards Beyond Waverly Place, be warned: it’s revealed in season two that Billie is Alex’s daughter. Spoiler alert!

Disney reports that since its premiere, Wizards of Waverly Place has gained over 101 million views on the Disney Channel’s YouTube channel. It’s also one of the five most-watched shows on the platform among viewers aged 6-11, 12-17, and 18-24.

The popular series Wizards of Waverly Place aired on Disney Channel for four seasons, totaling 106 episodes, between 2007 and 2012. It continued with a TV movie and a special called The Wizards Return: Alex Vs. Alex in 2013. A revival of the show, Wizards Beyond Waverly Place, premiered on Disney Channel in 2024.

Lost Disney Animated Movies That Were Never Made

Who Discovered Roger Rabbit

As a huge fan of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, I always found it fascinating to learn about the attempts to create a sequel. After the first film’s success in ’88, Steven Spielberg was initially going to produce a movie called Roger Rabbit: The Toon Platoon, which would have shown Roger’s early life, even including him serving in the army during WWII. But after he directed Schindler’s List, he moved on. Years later, in ’97, they tried again with Who Discovered Roger Rabbit, reimagining it as a story about how Roger became famous on Broadway and in Hollywood. They even shot some test footage, blending classic animation with live-action and CGI, but Disney wasn’t happy with how it looked after screenings in the late ’90s and early 2000s, and sadly, the project was scrapped.

Untitled Nightmare Before Christmas Sequel

In the early 2000s, Disney explored the possibility of creating a CGI sequel to the beloved 1993 film, The Nightmare Before Christmas. However, the original creator, Tim Burton, persuaded them to abandon the idea, wanting to preserve the unique quality of the first movie. Instead, a direct continuation of the story was released in 2004 as the Capcom video game, The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie’s Revenge. More recently, director Henry Selick suggested making a prequel, but as of 2024, both he and Tim Burton have stated that another film is unlikely.

Swan Lake

In the early 1990s, Disney planned to make an animated movie based on the classic ballet Swan Lake, perfectly fitting their typical princess movie style. However, they abandoned the project when they discovered that Richard Rich, a former Disney animator, was already working on a similar film called The Swan Princess after leaving Disney in 1986 to start his own studio. The Swan Princess, released by New Line Cinema in 1994, wasn’t a success in theaters, but it later gained a dedicated fanbase through home video.

Don Quixote

For decades, Disney has repeatedly tried to create an animated movie based on the famous Spanish story, Don Quixote. The first attempt was in the 1940s, but it was canceled because Pinocchio and Fantasia hadn’t performed well financially, and the company shifted its focus to making shorter films and content to support the war effort. Disney tried again in the 1950s, hoping to use a different animation style, but that version didn’t succeed either. Most recently, in the early 2000s, Disney canceled another Don Quixote adaptation, deciding it was too mature for a Disney audience.

A Princess of Mars

In the early 1990s, Disney began developing an animated science fiction movie called A Princess of Mars, inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic novel. Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was Disney’s CEO at the time, really wanted to make the film and offered it to renowned Disney directors Rob Clements and John Musker, but they turned it down. Almost twenty years later, in 2012, Disney released a live-action version called John Carter, but it wasn’t successful in theaters.

Kingdom of the Sun

Before the fun and quirky Disney comedy The Emperor’s New Groove came out in 2000, there was an earlier version called Kingdom of the Sun. This first attempt at the story was going to be a musical with a much more serious tone. It featured a prince who was transformed, a villainous witch named Yzma, and a plot to darken the world. Owen Wilson was originally cast as the voice of Pacha, and the music was being written by Sting. However, after early test screenings didn’t go well, the filmmakers had to start over. They removed the musical elements during the rewrite, but thankfully, Eartha Kitt’s song “Snuff Out the Light” – originally written for the film – still made it onto the soundtrack, even though it wasn’t included in the final movie.

Tinker Bell and the Ring of Belief

Before Disney launched the Tinker Bell film series in 2008, another Tinker Bell movie, Tinker Bell and the Ring of Belief, was being made. The late Brittany Murphy was originally cast as the voice of the famous pixie from Peter Pan. Planned for release in 2007, this film would have told the story of Tinker Bell’s beginnings and how she met Peter Pan. Disney released some early previews and trailers in the mid-2000s, but the project ultimately changed drastically. Creative disagreements, budget problems, and Disney’s shift from traditional 2D animation to 3D animation led to a complete overhaul of the original film.

Where the Wild Things Are

Long before the live-action Where the Wild Things Are movie came out in 2009, Disney considered making an animated version of Maurice Sendak’s popular children’s book. In 1983, animators Glen Keane and John Lasseter created a short test film showing Max playing up in his room. This short combined classic hand-drawn animation with early 3D techniques, but Disney ultimately decided not to pursue a full-length film because it would have been too expensive and challenging to produce.

Gigantic

Originally announced at Disney’s D23 Expo in 2015, Gigantic was going to be a CGI-animated movie about a boy in Spain who befriended a giant girl named Inma. The story, inspired by “Jack and the Beanstalk,” involved a hidden world in the clouds and was intended to feature songs from the creators of Frozen. However, the film faced several delays and was ultimately canceled in 2017 due to disagreements about its creative direction, as explained by then-Disney animation president Ed Catmull. While the project is currently on hold with no plans for release, a subtle nod to the film appears as an Easter egg in Disney’s Zootopia.

Babes in Toyland

In 1955, Walt Disney originally intended to create an animated movie based on the beloved Christmas story, Babes in Toyland. But the project faced delays and was later reimagined as a live-action film. Starring Annette Funicello, Disney’s Babes in Toyland premiered in 1961 and marked the company’s first full-length live-action musical.

Dufus

During the late 1980s, Disney considered an animated movie adaptation of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, with a surprising twist: talking and singing German shepherds. They even asked lyricist Howard Ashman to create music for the film, which was tentatively titled Dufus. Unfortunately, Disney couldn’t secure the rights to the story from Salinger himself, so the project was ultimately abandoned.

Mistress Masham’s Repose

Back in the mid-1980s, Disney animator Joe Hale was working on a movie called Mistress Mahasam’s Repose, inspired by T.H. White’s 1946 novel. The story would have centered on a young orphan who becomes friends with a group of Lilliputians – the miniature people known from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Although Roy E. Disney was enthusiastic about the project, then-CEO Michael Eisner didn’t approve, and the film was cancelled. Now, you can still find early concept art and character designs by renowned Disney animator Andreas Deja online, offering a glimpse of what could have been.

King of the Elves

Disney planned a 3D animated movie called King of the Elves, based on a 1953 short story by Philip K. Dick. The film, which would have been directed by the team behind Brother Bear, was set in the Mississippi Delta and told the story of elves who crown a human as their king after he rescues them from a troll. Though announced in 2008, the project faced several delays and was ultimately cancelled in 2013 due to problems with the storyline.

Newt

Back in 2008, Disney revealed Pixar was developing a movie called Newt. It was going to be about two endangered blue-footed newts—a male and a female—who started to connect during a shared adventure, even though they didn’t initially like each other. The film was initially planned for release around 2011 or 2012, and a hidden newt carving actually appeared in Pixar’s Brave as a fun Easter egg. Ultimately, though, the project was canceled because the story felt too similar to the 2011 Blue Sky Studios film Rio.

My Peoples (AKA A Few Good Ghosts)

In the early 2000s, Disney began developing an animated film about a young couple from rival families in Appalachia who turned to a group of haunted folk art dolls for help. The movie, which at different times was called My Peoples and A Few Good Ghosts, would have starred Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin, and Hal Holbrook, and blended traditional animation with computer-generated imagery. It was also planned to have a soundtrack inspired by bluegrass music. However, the project was cancelled in late 2003, reportedly because Disney decided to focus on the more commercially promising Chicken Little. Some of the folk doll characters later made a very brief appearance in the 2007 film Meet the Robinsons.

2026-04-02 22:58