The reboot series will air on HBO Max.
Get ready to return to the Upper East Side!
On Wednesday, The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that HBO Max, WarnerMedia's new streaming service that's set to launch in spring 2020, has given a straight-to-series order for a reimagining of Gossip Girl, which ran on the CW from 2007 to 2012.
While none of the original cast is set to reprise their roles -- the teen soap starred the likes of Leighton Meester, Blake Lively, Chace Crawford, Ed Westwick and Penn Badgley -- the update will be led by the team behind the original series including Joshua Safran, Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage.
"It's something we've been talking about -- Josh, Stephanie and I -- for a little bit, just in terms of, 'Is this something we want to explore?' We're all so in love with the original and had such an incredible time working on it, and it's such a big part of our lives," Safran told THR. "Then the stars aligned and we had availability to jump, and Warners, obviously, it's something they're very passionate about. It seemed like the best time and also the best way to do it."
Safran called the show an "extension" of the original series and provided a general logline to give fans an idea of what they can expect.
"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 logline reads. "The prestige series will address just how much social media -- and the landscape of New York itself -- has changed in the intervening years."
"It's just a new look at this particular society in New York, the idea being that society changes constantly," Safran said. "So how has this world changed, how has social media and its effect changed? All of those things allow us to look at the world 12 years on as opposed to just redoing the story. None of us are interested in just redoing a story."
In February, when ET caught up with Crawford, who played Nate Archibald on the original series, he wasn't sure if Gossip Girl should ever be rebooted.
"I don't think anyone's been seriously talking about that. I think they'd have to come up with a real plan, and I know Josh and Stephanie would have to be a part of it," he said at the time. "It is funny to me, it's almost become a classic now. It probably goes to show you that we shouldn't be redoing it. I can't be in high school anymore. That's the thing. I don't even know what they would do. For me personally, I would love to see everybody again and I loved everybody and I would love to work with everybody, but I don't know if it's necessarily a reality."
"I don't know what the way in would be to the story, to get everyone back together," he added. "I'm always up for anything. That was such a good part of my life and experience, and hell, if they throw in shooting in New York City again, I'm there."
Crawford even jokingly predicted that, in a potential reboot, the whole original cast would be replaced by younger actors, something that now aligns with what HBO Max has planned for its Gossip Girl iteration.
"The second we probably [decide], 'Yeah, let's do it'... [it'll be like], 'Oh, we recast everybody. They're all young kids. Same show, different people,'" Crawford quipped of the original cast.
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