5 Things to Know About HBO's 'Gossip Girl' Reboot
Read up on the cast, release date and more.
Though hit CW series Gossip Girl ended in 2012, we’ve spent the past eight years wondering what Lonely Boy, Queen B and Little J have been up to — or rather, what hijinks they would be up to if the beloved show was still on. Thankfully, streaming platform HBO Max answered fans’ prayers and is set to reboot the bonafide cultural touchstone with a 10-episode sequel. The new Gossip Girl will return to the Upper East Side but this time, Manhattan’s elite will have the stresses of social media to worry about (in the hands of Gossip Girl, there’s no telling what havoc Instagram can wreak).
Read on for everything you need to know about HBO’s upcoming Gossip Girl reboot.
New Cast Members
HBO Max has confirmed five leading cast members including Emily Alyn Lind, who recently starred alongside Ewan McGregor in Doctor Sleep, and Whitney Peak of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. No stranger to teen drama-comedy, Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists regular Eli Brown is also confirmed to join the cast along with Lethal Weapon’s Jonathan Fernandez and Broadway actor Jason Gotay.
Variety reports that former fashion blogger Tavi Gevinson, Zion Moreno of Claws, High Fidelity‘s Thomas Doherty and stage actor Adam Chanler-Berat have also been cast.
Returning Cast Members
Original cast member Penn Badgley — who played “Lonely Boy” Dan Humphrey, eventually outed as the mind behind Gossip Girl — told Entertainment Tonight that he would consider reprising his role. Though there’s no word yet on whether Blake Lively (Serena Van Der Woodsen) and Leighton Meester (Blair Waldorf) will make appearances in the sequel, Kristen Bell will return as the series’ narrator. As for naive-yet-lovable Nate Archibald, actor Chace Crawford revealed that he would be happy to join the reboot if asked: “I’d play a dad now, I guess…I just love [series creators] Josh [Schwartz] and Stephanie [Savage] and if they wanted me to come and do anything it would be hard to say no,” he told EW.
Production
Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, creators of the original Gossip Girl, will produce HBO’s reboot. Josh Safran, executive producer and writer for the originals series, will also return. Safran attended prestigious private school Horace Mann, a real-life version of Gossip Girl’s Constance Billard that is sure to provide loose inspiration for HBO’s take.
Content
Set in an updated cultural landscape, the new Gossip Girl will feature queer content as well as a more diverse cast. Safran acknowledged the original’s lack of diversity and revealed changes fans can expect: ”This time around the leads are nonwhite. There’s a lot of queer content on this show,” he told Vulture. “It is very much dealing with the way the world looks now, where wealth and privilege come from, and how you handle that.”
Release
A specific release date has yet to be announced, but the series is set to hit HBO Max sometime this year. We’re sure the streaming platform will see a spike in subscriptions once an official release is announced.
