‘Gossip Girl’ Reboot Trailer, Teaser Date Revealed in New Kristen Bell Promo

Gossip Girl fans will be excited to learn that the reboot of the hit teen drama has a new teaser trailer narrated by Kristen Bell. Additionally, the new promo revealed the date that the series will debut on HBO Max: Thursday, July 8. Bell was the narrator on the original Gossip Girl, playing the voice of the omnipotent blogger, and is returning for the new series, which features a cast of new faces.

The original Gossip Girl catapulted many of its stars to A-list fame, such as Blake Lively, Penn Badgley, Leighton Meester, Chace Crawford, and Ed Westwick. The new cast includes an all-new roster of high-class young adults: Jordan Alexander, Eli Brown, Thomas Doherty, Tavi Gevinson, Emily Alyn Lind, Evan Mock, Zion Moreno, Whitney Peak and Savannah Lee Smith. Notably, both versions of the show are based on novels by Cecily von Ziegesar.

In a 2019 TCA panel, Gossip Girl executive producer Josh Schwartz explained that this new version of the story won’t follow the same formula as the original. “We felt like a version that was just our cast grown up…it didn’t really feel like a group of adults who were being controlled by Gossip Girl would make a lot of sense,” he said. In the original series, Badgely’s character turns out to be the elusive Gossip Girl blogger.

“It felt like there was something really interesting about this idea that we are all Gossip Girl now, in our own way,” Schwartz continued. He added, “We are all purveyors of our own social media surveillance state, and how that’s evolved, and how that has morphed and mutated and telling that story through a new generation of upper east side high school kids felt like the right time.” He also clarified that there will be “no” mystery as to who the Gossip Girl is this time around.

Finally, Schwartz addressed the possibility of any of the original stars returning. “I mean, if they want to be involved in some way,” he said, “we reached out to all of them to let them know it was happening and that we would love for them to be involved if they want to be involved, but we certainly didn’t want to make it contingent upon them.” Schwartz concluded, “And you know, they played those characters for six years and if they felt like they’re good with that, we wanted to respect that but obviously any time anybody wants…it’d be great to see them again.”