Selena Gomez will executive produce and star in Disney Channel‘s one-hour Wizards Of Waverly Place special set to premiere in early 2013. She’ll join Jake T. Austin, Jennifer Stone, Maria Canals-Barrera, David DeLuise and Gregg Sulkin, who’ll reprise their original roles.

The storyline takes the Russo family and friends to Tuscany, Italy, to meet their long-lost relatives, but when Alex (Gomez) tries to prove she’s more than a seemingly carefree young wizard, she inadvertently conjures a spell that creates a Good Alex and an Evil Alex. When Evil Alex gets roped into a foreboding plan to take over the world, Good Alex must find a way to save her family and humankind, which leads to a monumental battle between the two versions of herself — all atop the Tower of Pisa.

The Wizards Of Waverly Place won its third Best Children’s Program Emmy at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards this month. It has won twice for the series (2009, 2012) and once for the its TV movie offshoot (2010). It is the only scripted series to win the award in the past two decades, since Disney Channel’s Avonlea did it in 1993.

The special was written by Vince Cheung and Ben Montanio (Wizards Of Waverly Place) and Dan Berendsen (Baby Daddy). Cheung, Montanio, Dan Cross and David Hoge will join Gomez as executive producers. Victor Gonzalez (Wizards Of Waverly Place) will direct. Wizards Of Waverly Place was created by Todd J. Greenwald (Hannah Montana) and is produced by It’s a Laugh Productions for Disney Channel.