The first Gossip Girl reboot footage is revealed, offering a peek into the upcoming HBO Max series that will premiere in 2021. The show is a sequel to The CW drama of the same name, which itself was based on a novel series by Cecily von Ziegesar. The show minted stars out of Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Penn Badgley, and Chace Crawford. The characters they played, particularly Serena van der Woodsen and Blair Waldorf, are regularly cited as examples of rich and complex portrayals.
The reboot takes place eight years after the events of the first series, following a new set of Manhattan private schoolers. They’ll receive the attention of the titular Gossip Girl, narrated by the returning Kristen Bell. Taking place in the same universe as the original, according to showrunner Joshua Safran, the reboot will allow for plenty of references and potential cameos. The focus will be on the large new cast, however. That includes Emily Alyn Lind, Whitney Peak, Eli Brown, Thomas Doherty, Zión Moreno, Savannah Smith, Jordan Alexander, Evan Mock, Tavi Gevinson, Johnathan Fernandez, Jason Gotay, Adam Chanler-Berat, and Laura Benanti.
In a video meant to promote the upcoming lineup of movies and series on HBO Max, the first glimpse of the new Gossip Girl is revealed. The quick preview highlights the reboot’s diverse cast, which is a stark contrast from its predecessor. Like many teen dramas of its era, sadly, the original Gossip Girl was severely lacking in terms of inclusion. Check out the Gossip Girl footage in the video below, starting at the 36-second mark.
An exciting element about the reboot is how times have changed since Gossip Girl concluded its run on The CW in 2012. When it premiered in 2007, the show predicted what is now fairly commonplace. Serena, Blair, Dan and the rest of the protagonists were quick to turn to their phones in order to stay ahead of the latest news. The titular gossip queen exploited this fact, regularly providing her readers with information no matter how tedious or significant. These days, social media users are fairly attuned to the ways in which Twitter and other platforms thrive by magnifying and prioritizing controversy. Whether it’s richly deserved or ultimately a meaningless distraction, everyone from celebrities to regular people can find themselves trending in a moment’s notice. The reboot will have plenty of ground to explore if it leans into this fact.
Still, the reboot would do well not to be overly reverent of what came before. Several episodes of the Gossip Girl featured the characters using their immense wealth and privilege to bulldoze any unfortunate guest star that stood in their way. Another troubling aspect is that the drama regularly romanticized Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick), even though the character attempted to rape a girl in one of his first scenes and would continue to exhibit toxic behavior. The original Gossip Girl was a fun watch in other ways, with a particularly strong first season, but the reboot can chart its own unique and more progressive path.
Source: HBO Max