A reboot of the original Gossip Girl teen drama series with a brand new cast is coming. WarnerMedia confirmed in a statement released on Wednesday that its soon-to-launched streaming service HBO Max has placed a straight-to-series order.
The order will be for a 10-episode re-imagining of the iconic show that ran on The CW from six seasons, from September 2007 to December 2012.
WarnerMedia also confirmed that Joshua Safran, Josh Schwartz, and Stephanie Savage, who executive produced the original series will return as executive producers alongside Leslie Morgenstein and Gina Girolamo, while Safran will pen the series.
Safran said the rebooted Gossip Girl will essentially be an “extension” of the original series narrated by the Gossip Girl blogger (Kristen Bell).
The original series followed the lives of a group of privileged teens living in Manhattan’s upscale Upper East Side.
The series quickly gained an enthusiastic following after it premiered on The CW in September 2007. It is widely regarded as one of television’s most popular teen dramas.
When the show ended in December 2012, it was clear fans hadn’t had enough of the escapades of the Upper East Side teens.
The rebooted series will feature a brand new cast
The rebooted series takes place eight years after the original, with a new generation of teens coming under the radar of the omniscient Gossip Girl in a world that has changed drastically since the end of the original series.
According to the official description of the rebooted series provided by WarnerMedia on Wednesday:
Eight years after the original website went dark, a new generation of New York private school teens are introduced to the social surveillance of Gossip Girl. The prestige series will address just how much social media — and the landscape of New York itself — has changed in the intervening years.
The original series, an adaptation of Cecily von Ziegesar’s YA novel series of the same name, starred Leighton Meester, Blake Lively, Chace Crawford, Penn Badgley, Taylor Momsen, and Ed Westwick.
None of the original cast members are returning. The rebooted series will feature an entirely new cast.
Are casting auditions about to start?
Although a release date for the rebooted series has not been announced, it is widely expected it will premiere sometime in 2020. HBO Max launches in the spring of 2020 with more than 10,000 hours of new content.
This means that casting auditions can be expected to begin soon, but there is no word yet from the showrunners.
Will there be cameo appearances by original cast members?
Although it has been confirmed that the rebooted series will feature a brand new cast, there has been some talk about members of the original cast making cameos.
The reboot is set in the same universe as the original, so cameo appearances by members of the original cast could happen.
While some of the original cast said they don’t want to appear in the new series, others expressed interest.
Chace Crawford (Nate Archibald) told Digital Spy that he would love to cameo in the reboot. Leighton Meester (Blair Waldorf) told Net-A-Porter magazine she was not interested in reprising her role, but she doesn’t necessarily rule out the possibility of a brief cameo in the upcoming series.
Similarly, Blake Lively (Serene van der Woodsen) told Variety in a 2017 interview that she might be interested in reprising her role in a Gossip Girl reboot.
Penn Badgley (Dan Humphrey) did not rule out the possibility either when Variety asked him in September 2018. But at the time he thought a reboot was unlikely.
Ed Westwick (Chuck Bass) also told Radio Times in 2017 that a Gossip Girl reboot was practically impossible and his character was already “played out.” But when asked whether he would play the character again, he said only if he was offered $1 million.