Hey Upper East Siders, did you hear? HBO Max is giving you a first look at its much-anticipated series, Gossip Girl.
Based on the bestselling novels by Cecily von Ziegesar and developed by Joshua Safran – a writer and executive producer on the original series. This extension of a pop culture classic takes us back to the Upper Eastside, where a new generation of New York private school teens are introduced to social surveillance nine years after the original blogger’s website went dark.
That original blogger was discovered to be Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley), a.k.a “Lonely Boy,” the series outsider and most grounded of its character. Growing up in Brooklyn – yet managing to attend one of the most prestigious private schools in the Upper East Side – Humphrey had a lot to prove to his elite classmates.
When revealing his identity in the series finale in a serialized book to The NY Spectator, he wrote, “ The Upper East Side was like something from Fitzgerald or Thackeray. Teenagers acting like adults. Adults acting like teenagers, guarding secrets, spreading gossip, all with the trappings of truly opulent wealth. And membership in this community was so elite you couldn’t even buy your way in; it was a birthright. A birthright I didn’t have and my greatest achievements would never earn me. All I had to compare to this world was what I read in books, but that gave me the idea. I wasn’t born into this world. Maybe, I could write myself in it.”
For six seasons, viewers watched and wondered who the anonymous blogger – who had an arsenal of “sources” and was known all over the country, could be. Cataloging every detail and movement of the lives of “It Girl” Serena VanderWoodson (Blake Lively), Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), Charles “Chuck” Bass (Ed Westwick), and Nate Archibold (Chace Crawford), earned the blogger known as “Gossip Girl” an undisputable reputation.
In this continuation of the hit CW show, that for six seasons from 2007 to 2012, Gossip Girls will explore just how much social media — and the landscape of New York itself — has changed in the intervening years.
The series stars Jordan Alexander, Eli Brown, Thomas Doherty, Tavi Gevinson, Emily Alyn Lind, Evan Mock, Zion Moreno, Whitney Peak, and Savannah Lee Smith. With original show developers Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage returning as executive producers, and Kristen Bell is returning as the anonymous voice of “GG.”
Gossip Girl debuts on HBO Max July 8th.
