‘Sex and the City’ Creator Reveals Being ‘Startled’ by HBO Max Reboot

Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell spoke out about the HBO Max sequel series And Just Like That…, and she is “startled” by the decisions made by Michael Patrick King and Darren Star. Bushnell wrote the original New York Observer column inspired by her and her friends’ lives in New York City that was the basis for the original 1998-2004 HBO series. However, Carrie Bradshaw‘s life has gone so far beyond Bushnell’s own that she no longer feels connected to Sarah Jessica Parker’s character.

In a new interview with The New Yorker, Bushnell said she was surprised by the story decisions King and Parker made. “I’m really startled by a lot of the decisions made in the reboot,” Bushnell said. “You know, it’s a television product, done with Michael Patrick King and Sarah Jessica Parker, who have both worked with HBO a lot in the past. HBO decided to put this franchise back into their hands for a variety of reasons, and this is what they came up with.”

Bushnell no longer sees herself at all in Carrie, who “ended up being a quirky woman who married a really rich guy.” The author added, “And that’s not my story or any of my friends’ stories. But TV has its own logic.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Bushnell commented on the status of Is There Still Sex and the City?, a pilot she wrote based on her 2019 novel. The series would have been about women who moved out of New York City and were dating younger guys. One woman would be dating an 87-year-old man who said he was 75. “The pandemic happened, and the project fell apart. But I’m going to retool it. I have all these ideas, being back in the city, meeting people of all ages,” Bushnell said.

Back in January 2021, Bushnell told Page Six that the new show would work without Kim Cattrall, who chose not to return. “You know what, I think it’s fine. Kim is a grown woman. She is 64 and she’s made a decision that I’m sure she has 10 very good reasons for and I respect her for that,” she said at the time. “I also think it will be interesting. But I also know there’s a lot of interesting characters like [Cynthia Nixon’s] Miranda. We are all Mirandas. Miranda is an interesting character – but I don’t know what they’re gonna do.”

Bushnell’s latest comments on And Just Like That… come a few days after Cynthia Nixon shared one of her biggest regrets of the sequel series. Nixon, who reprised her role as Miranda Hobbes, said she wished everyone did a better job making it clear to fans that And Just Like That… was meant to be its own thing. It wasn’t more Sex and the City, she said.

“If I could do anything differently, I would have made sure we said to people in letters 10 feet tall: This is not Sex and the City,” Nixon told Vogue. “If you’re looking for Sex and the City, you should watch the reruns. This is a new show for this moment and for the moment in these original characters’ lives.” All 10 episodes of And Just Like That… are available on HBO Max, as well as the original Sex and the City series.