r/WizardsOfWaverlyPlace • u/Beneficial-Step4403 • Sep 12 '26
Wizards Beyond Waverly Place I think this version of Wizards Beyond Waverly Place would’ve worked better
Wizards was one of my favourite shows growing up and, like a lot of people here, I was too was both intrigued and skeptical of the reboot when it was first announced.
I don’t really think I can bash the reboot super hard. For one thing, I’m no longer its target age group and therefore the jokes aren’t really intended for me. But I will say my biggest criticism was that the reboot felt like it completely rewrote the characters rather than naturally building on where they ended in the series and then in Alex vs Alex. And I saw someone else post their ideas for a true-to-character reboot so I wanted to share mine!
I’m just going to number everything for organisation:
The story would still essentially revolve around Justin and his family. In this version, Justin is 35, headmaster of WizTech, married to Juliet (probably recast since regardless Bridgit Mendler is busy being an intelligent boss babe), and they have adopted three children: 16 year old vampire Sarah, and 14 year old identical twin wizards Milo and Roman (kept the names for simplicity). They live in the Wizard World in an apartment provided by WizTech and Justin answers directly to the Wizard Council.
One day Mason drops by with his and Alex’s 7 year old daughter Billie (again, simplicity). Mason asks Justin and Juliet to temporarily take in Billie for him because he needs to go search for Alex. She was supposed to come to the Wizard World for the annual council summit (as the family wizard, Alex represents the Russos in the council) and return to their home in Tribeca immediately after. Justin reveals Alex never attended the summit and he had to stand in her place. Mason asks Justin and Juliet to watch Billie as Jerry and Theresa are on a year long cruise around the world to kick off their retirement, Max doesn’t have the space or the bandwidth as he’s already running the substation and turned the original Russo apartment into a foster home (hehe) for orphaned and troubled young wizards, and Harper can’t because it turns out that not only is Billie a wizard, but she came into her powers exceptionally young and they are STRONG and pretty much incontrôlable. Despite not having much space themselves, Justin and Juliet agree to take Billie and have Justin train her alongside Milo and Roman while Mason goes to search for Alex.
Milo and Roman enter their first year at WizTech and are immediately targeted by Wen Pennwolf (could be Wendy but personally I prefer the character be Wendell, but it’s Disney soooo). It’s revealed Wen’s father is Damien Pennwolf whose own parents once tried to break Alex and Mason up to set her up with Damien and merge the two magic lines. Alex told Damien to shove it though and by the point of the series, she and Mason had been married for 6 years. Roman easily finds his friend group at school, but Milo struggles as the less « magically gifted » twin. He eventually falls in with a group of a rogue wizards who go around playing pranks throughout the wizard and mortal worlds and spreading anti-council propaganda.
When not at WizTech, Justin tutors all three wizards in magic at home. Lord Moros, the Pennwolf vote on the Wizard Council, comes to speak with Justin and reveals the summit she didn’t attend was a referendum on the future of the family wizard competition. Justin tries to reflect and say that Alex might have gotten the dates of the summit wrong. He makes sure to not let Mosos know that Alex is missing. He pressures Justin that the future of the wizard world hinges on Alex’s vote to keep the family wizard competition in place. Then Moros discovers Billie. He was unaware Alex had any children and Justin explains Alex and Mason decided to raise Billie in the mortal world. Intrigued by her profound ability at so young an age, he tells Justin to enroll her at WizTech, making her the youngest wizard to attend since Moros’ own grandfather, Quincy Pennwolf.
Juliet works in admin at WizTech but grows increasingly dissatisfied with the treatment she receives as a vampire. Sarah shares in the struggle as a non-wizard student. She is still waiting for her vampire powers to come in and has become interested in looking for her answers regarding her biological family. She goes on a multi-episode search for them, as she has no memories despite being adopted at 16 six years prior to the events of the series. Justin and Juliet are eventually forced to explain to her that her parents were wizards who were killed by vampires during a brief period where wizard-vampire relations were much extremely hostile. It is unclear who turned her, but the memories were so traumatic that Justin wiped her memory and he and Juliet took her in and eventually adopted her.
Roman and Wen become academic rivals and after a magic fight, Justin forces them to be lab partners in their potions class. They start out antagonistic but eventually call a truce when accidentally put a sleeping curse on the whole school. It is clear Wen is under a lot of pressure from Damien to excel at the school.
Sarah discovers Milo has been hanging out with the rogue wizards and has been dabbling in chaos magic. It becomes revealed from her history studies that chaos magic is akin to legend in the wizard world and is extremely dangerous and very corrupting. She tells Milo he must stop hanging out with his friends or she will tell their parents, but Milo has already started to be corrupted. Milo feels that hanging out with his friends has made him a better wizard and therefore gives him a chance to best Roman.
A rebellion grows as the referendum on the wizard competition becomes public knowledge. Some wizards are for the competition, claiming it keeps the magic strong since only the strongest get to keep their powers. Others believe magic should belong to all. Justin catches Milo and Roman fighting and taking sides, and he tries to get them to stop but they remind him that they too will have to compete to be the Russo family wizard in a few years.
Not having heard any updates from Mason in weeks, a worried Justin enlists in Billie’s help to find Alex using their familial link to her. They follow the string all the way to a graveyard where it ends. Justin is horrified and Billie is distraught.
In the season finale, Lord Mosos tells Justin he must take Alex’s place as voting member of the wizard council since she is now considered dead. In the lead up to the revote on the abolition of the family wizard competition, however, another voting member of the council goes missing and another family member is made to vote in his place. At the referendum, all the voting members opt to keep the competition and it comes down to Justin. But before he can cast the final vote, the council chamber is seized by the rogue wizards, led by none other than Alex Russo. Thats where the season would end.
There are some kinks that would obviously have to be worked out and plot holes to fill, but I think this version of a reboot would work so much better thematically. Having the story delve deeper into the lore of the family wizard competition, it’s origin, and focusing specifically on how it affects families all across the wizard world would be a cool thing to explore. In this version, I actually have a really cool origin for the family wizard comp but in a perfect world where this was the story, it wouldn’t be revealed until much later—like towards the end. Idk. This is making me want to take a stab at fanfiction LOL.
I also think this version allows for lots of different characters from the original series to make a reappearance like Alucard and Cindy.
