Latest Gossip Girl gossip, spoilers and news
The HBO Max reboot of Blake Lively's 'Gossip Girl' will tackle issues of the ultra-wealthy, albeit in a different way. The classic CW series ran for six seasons — 2007 through 2012 — and was based on a novel of the same name by Cecily Von Ziegesar. At the center of the teenie confection was a mysterious blogger whose primary job was to uncover dirty secrets of the Upper East Side and its privileged residents.
The reimagined version is the same but different. Scheduled to release on July 8, the show sheds light on how life has changed in NYC and that the teens from Manhattan no longer pride themselves on bad behavior. Okay, maybe a little. Kirsten Bell will return as the narrator, while Jordan Alexander, Eli Brown, Thomas Doherty, Tavi Gevinson, Emily Alyn Lind, Evan Mock, Zion Moreno, Whitney Peak, and Savannah Lee Smith get to play key roles in the 10-episode series.
Lively's era, also starring Leighton Meester (Blair Waldorf), Penn Badgley (Dan Humphrey), Ed Westwick (Chuck Bass), and Chace Crawford (Nate Archibald), dealt with teen pregnancy, bullying, sexual assault, drugs, and more. With the 'Gossip Girl' reboot, the focus has shifted to online privacy, and sexual and economic inequality, and how these impact life in high school. Clearly, a lot has changed since petty blogs and unsettling social dynamics fed by the affluent. We are not complaining.
'Gossip Girl' interests us in more ways than one. However, it also makes us wonder if it will stay relevant in today's changing times. Showrunner Joshua Safran told Variety about how the kids will wrestle with privilege in a way that the original didn't. "In light of [Black Lives Matter], in light of a lot of things, even going back to Occupy Wall Street, things have shifted. I think the first [‘Gossip Girl’] showed a little bit of wealth porn or privilege porn, like, look at these cars, or here’s a montage of the best-plated food you’ve ever seen."
The series will be set nine years after the OG series went off air, and viewers are keen on knowing if fashion has continued to rule the lives of the upscale teenagers with unlimited credit cards. Will expensive art, chartered flights, and Balenciagas make frequent appearances? Expect no less.
'Gossip Girl' has been developed by Safran, who was also a writer and executive producer with the original series. It is produced by Fake Empire and Alloy Entertainment in association with Warner Bros. Television and CBS Studios. Serving as Executive Producers are Josh Schwartz, Stephanie Savage, Leslie Morgenstein, and Gina Girolamo.
