HBO Max has dropped the first teaser for its “Gossip Girl” reboot series, featuring a new crop of teenage Upper East-Siders being surveilled by the titular, mysterious blogger. You know you love her (already), because the voice is that of OG “Gossip Girl” narrator Kristen Bell, who is reprising the audio-only role for the updated take on The CW teen drama.
“You’ve gotten so comfortable,” Bell’s Gossip Girl says over footage from the upcoming show, featuring stars Jordan Alexander, Eli Brown, Thomas Doherty, Tavi Gevinson, Emily Alyn Lind, Evan Mock, Zion Moreno, Whitney Peak and Savannah Lee Smith. “Thinking you’re in control of your image, your actions, the narrative, that you forgot one thing: I can see you. And before I’m through, I’ll make sure you see you, too. Xoxo, Gossip Girl.”
Oh, crap.
Per HBO Max, the new “Gossip Girl” is an “extension of the pop culture classic” that “takes us back to the Upper East Side finding a new generation of New York private school teens being introduced to social surveillance nine years after the original blogger’s website went dark.” The streaming series will explore “just how much social media — and the landscape of New York itself — has changed in the intervening years.”
HBO Max’s “Gossip Girl” was developed by showrunner Joshua Safran, a writer and executive producer on the original CW series developed by Josh Schwartz & Stephanie Savage, which ran from 2007-2012 on The CW. The OG “Gossip Girl” and the reboot are based on the bestselling novels by Cecily von Ziegesar.
The show starred Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Penn Badgley, Chace Crawford, Ed Westwick, Kelly Rutherford and Matthew Settle.
The new “Gossip Girl” series is written, executive produced and developed by Safran of Random Acts. Executive producers also include Schwartz and Savage of Fake Empire, and Leslie Morgenstein and Gina Girolamo of Alloy Entertainment. Lis Rowinski of Fake Empire serves as co-executive producer. Karena Evans directs two episodes and original costume designer Eric Daman rejoins the series.
“Gossip Girl” is produced by Fake Empire and Alloy Entertainment in association with Warner Bros. Television and CBS Studios.
The “Gossip Girl” reboot launches July 8 on HBO Max.