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Wizards Beyond Waverly Place brought back Justin and Alex Russo after 12 years, but the youngest Russo sibling, Max, seems to be missing.
David Henrie leads the Disney Channel reboot as he reprises his character, Justin, who now has a wife and family and has moved on from his life as the family wizard. Selena Gomez, meanwhile, guest starred on the show’s premiere episode as Justin’s sister Alex, who brought a young wizard, Billie (Janice LeeAnn Brown), to her brother’s doorstep hoping he’d agree to be her teacher.
Max Russo, who was played by Jake T. Austin, notably did not make an appearance in the show. However, in the premiere episode, his character’s fate is alluded to, as it’s revealed that he has taken over his dad’s business and runs a successful sandwich shop franchise.
After arriving on his doorstep, Billie asks Justin, “So, you’re the guy who owns all the sandwich shops? Like, the billionaire.”
“Uh, no, that would be Max,” Justin told her. “I’m a middle school vice principal, which some would say is much cooler than being a billionaire.”
“I would never say that,” Alex (Gomez) replied, and Billie echoed the same sentiment, telling Justin, “Nobody says that.”
When the reboot series was first announced in January, Henrie, 35, eased fans’ worries on Instagram after David DeLuise, who played Russo patriarch Jerry Russo, seemed to be unaware of the show in an Instagram comment.
Henrie quickly shut down those concerns, though, as he said in a comment, “We definitely plan on bringing back the original cast for the series order 🙌❤️.”
DeLuise did return as Jerry in the show, but Max (Austin) nor the Russo matriarch, Theresa (Maria Canals-Barrera), has yet to appear.
After his time on Wizards of Waverly Place, Austin, now 29, went on to star in The Fosters for two seasons before stepping away from the show. He later opened up in an interview with Flaunt about falling into “the trap of being in Hollywood” as he said was he “running with the wrong crowd, making some bad choices and also not taking the work seriously.”
Austin also admitted he “started losing touch in many ways” after spending six years on Wizards and then The Fosters.
“For a while, I was really enveloped in the characters I was playing and connected to them, but as I was growing up in front of the camera and going through puberty and going through my life, I kind of lost sight of who I was as a person.”
He still has a friendship with Gomez, though, as the Rare Beauty mogul joked in a video for Vanity Fair last month, “Jake, why don’t you ever answer my texts?”
“You know, he’s… He got a little handsome. He had all the girls, I remember that,” she continued of her former costar, before clarifying, “I’m complimenting you.”
