Spotted on the steps of the MET: the Cast of the Gossip Girl Reboot
“Every happy ending is just a new beginning. Because on the Upper East Side, the good times never last forever.”
The last episode of the beloved CW show, Gossip Girl, aired at the end of 2012. In it, we saw unexpected romances, new love, and old flames alike coming together in celebration of Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley) and Serena Van Der Woodsen’s (Blake Lively) wedding. We also finally found out who Gossip Girl was all along.
But beyond the hullabaloo of the series’ cathartic ending, we also witness the start of a budding generation of Gossip Girl admirers, which left off the series with a potential cliff hanger. “There will always be someone on the outside, wanting to get in,” said series narrator Kristen Bell during the final scene of the show.
Flash forward eight years from the last episode, and we now have a new generation of Upper East Siders ready to dominate the NYC landscape via a Gossip Girl reboot series. The HBO Max series was officially announced back in 2019, but production began this week with images from the set making their way to the web this past Tuesday.
The stars of the new series include: Whitney Peak, Thomas Doherty, Jordan Alexander, Savannah Smith, Zión Moreno, Eli Brown, and Evan Mock. The group was pictured sitting on the iconic steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City — a habitual meeting place for Serena Van Der Woodsen and Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) back when they attended Constance Billard. Kristen Bell will also reportedly reprise her role as the series’ narrator.
Gossip Girl 2.0 will focus on how much social media and the New York City landscape as a whole have changed in the intervening years. For those who may have forgotten, the original show left off in a ‘flash – forward’ set in 2017. This reboot will take place in 2021. Also adding to the revamped aspect of the show is the addition of a diverse cast.
“This time around the leads are nonwhite,” said the original series’ executive producer Joshua Safran at Vulture Festival. “There’s a lot of queer content on this show. It is very much dealing with the way the world looks now, where wealth and privilege come from, and how you handle that.”
Safran also reflected on his own experience while working on the 2007 series, saying that he was the only queer person in the writer’s room at the time, so he understands the importance of telling diverse stories. That is why the show will deal with the way the world looks now and where wealth and privilege come from while also introducing a way to handle it all.
As for who will make an appearance in the Gossip Girl reboot, Safran and the rest of his team have decided to keep that ambiguous.
In anticipation of the reboot, you can catch all six seasons of the original CW series on Netflix.