Gossip Girl will live to share another secret. The beloved CW drama series will be coming back for a 10-episode sequel series at WarnerMedia’s upcoming streaming service HBO Max. The show will reportedly be a continuation of the show and is being created by original series writer and executive producer Joshua Safran, Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage.
The announcement did not reveal whether the new series will feature appearances from original characters. The original made stars out of main cast members Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Penn Badgley, Chace Crawford and Ed Westwick.
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Like original series, the new Gossip Girl will be based on the book by Cecily von Ziegesar. Deadline also revealed the longline for reboot: “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.”
Safran will serve as executive producer with Fake Empire’s Schwartz and Savage, and Leslie Morgenstein and Gina Girolamo of Alloy Entertainment. Fake Empire’s Lis Rowinski is co-executive producer. Fake Empire and Alloy Entertainment produce in association with Warner Bros. Television and CBS Television Studios.
The original series ran for six seasons from 2007 – 2012 on The CW for 121 episodes and aired when social media was taking off as a cultural phenomenon. The news of the HBO Max reboot comes a few months since CW president Mark Pedowitz teased the possibility of the show making its return to the network.
“There’s a discussion, but I don’t know if we’re there yet,” Pedowitz told reporters at the Television Critics Association winter press tour in January. “I don’t know what it would be.”
At the time, Pedowitz added “a lot” of the decision to bring the show back would be up to Warner Bros. TV, the studio behind the series.
While there is no set release date for the new show, HBO Max is expected to launch in spring 2020 and will include content from HBO, as well as a number of different programs from Warner Bros., New Line, DC Entertainment, CNN, TNT, TBS, truTV, The CW, Turner Classic Movies, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Crunchyroll, Rooster Teeth and Looney Tunes, as well as original films from producer Greg Berlanti and Reese Witherspoon.
The new streaming service will also be the streaming home for new CW series, including Katy Keene and Batwoman, will popular CW series (like the other CW superhero dramas) will remain on Netflix until the end of their run.
“HBO Max will bring together the diverse riches of WarnerMedia to create programming and user experiences not seen before in a streaming platform. HBO’s world-class programming leads the way, the quality of which will be the guiding principle for our new array of Max Originals, our exciting acquisitions, and the very best of the Warner Bros. libraries, starting with the phenomenon that is ‘Friends,’” said Robert Greenblatt, chairman, WarnerMedia Entertainment and Direct-To-Consumer.
The original Gossip Girl series is currently available to stream on Netflix.
