Everything we know about the 'Gossip Girl' reboot
Alert Upper East Siders.
A "Gossip Girl" reboot is in the making and is coming to the new streaming service HBO Max, which will launch in May 2020. Rumors about the reboot ignited in February 2019 and was confirmed later in July. "Gossip Girl," which centers on a group of privileged young adults who once attended an elite prep school and all their complicated relationships, ran for six seasons from 2007 to 2012 and became a television phenomenon.
Here’s everything you need to know about the new series.
It's set eight years into the future after Dan Humphrey’s last entry, and features a younger generation of Upper East siders, who are introduced to the surveillance of Gossip Girl. It will have 10 episodes and it will focus on the role of social media and online privacy and how high schools have changed in the recent era. It's also based on the book by Cecily von Ziegesar and created by original writer and producer Joshua Safran, who worked on ABC Drama series "Quantico," along with Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage.
The cast is a lot more diverse than the original, which Safran wanted to ensure. He admitted that the original series lacked representation and said he was the only gay writer on the show.
“So, this time around the leads are nonwhite. There’s a lot of queer content on this show. It is very much dealing with the way the world looks now, where wealth and privilege come from,” said Safran according to Vulture.
Actress and musician Emily Alyn Lind is playing the lead on the show, according to Deadline. The lead is Audrey, who is in a long-term relationship and is searching for more. Whitney Peak, who starred in "Chilling Adventures of Sabrina" and Eli Brown from "Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists" will join Lind to form the leading trio, along with more new-namers Johnathan Fernandez and Jason Gotay.
They all attend the same school that the original was set in: Constance Billard. But not everyone resides on the Upper East Side, suggesting the show might expand beyond Manhattan and into Brooklyn, according to Safran.
One of the best parts is that the iconic narrator who voices "Gossip Girl" — you know you love her — Kristen Bell, is returning for her role in the reboot. As for the rest of the former cast, most of them don’t plan on being involved in the new series. Blake Lively pretty much shut down making time to do the reboot during her busy life, to all our dismay. Penn Badgley, who recently made waves for his appearance in the original Netflix series "You," said he isn’t too interested in reprising his role as Dan Humphrey, unless the writers would find a way to make his contribution meaningful.
Chace Crawford, the actor who plays Nate Archibald, is more open to the possibility of being in the reboot, but questioned how a bunch of 30 year olds would fit on the show and getting everyone’s schedules to work out. Ed Westwick, who played the undeniably hot and mysterious Chuck Bass, said in an interview in May 2017 that he feels like he hasn’t done enough in the time since the show has ended to comfortably revisit his role.
Fans are skeptical of the new reboot, as they’ve expressed devotion and attachment to the original characters. Many people on Twitter are not entertaining the idea of fresh faces and expect a lot from the series to live up to the quality of the original, which is always the big question for reboots of popular shows.
Although "Gossip Girl" is iconic and no one could do Blair and Serena except for Blair and Serena themselves, the reboot promises a modern twist on New York private school teenagers and more diverse representation, which is never a bad idea this day in age.
Until then, xoxo. Gossip Girl.
