The ‘Gossip Girl’ Reboot Premiere Will Air on The CW After Streaming On HBO Max

Hey, Upper East Siders—there’s a new crop of rich and beautiful teens in town, and they’re arguably more intimidating than the Blair Waldorfs and Serena van der Woodsens of the early aughts. Why? They have social media.

If you spent any part of the pandemic re-watching Gossip Girl on Netflix and longing a time before the Instagram influencer era, prepare for a plunge into the future this summer when the Gossip Girl reboot drops on HBO Max. A Warner Bros. spokesperson told Variety the series would be set nine years after the original’s 2012 finale. The reboot will feature a new generation of private-school students forced to navigate the new app-driven rumor mill.

Deadline confirmed in July 2020 that HBO ordered 10 episodes for HBO Max. Here, all the details we know so far about the celebrated series’ return to TV—including the full cast and a sneak peek at them in action.

Is there a trailer?

On June 10, HBO Max released the official trailer for the Gossip Girl reboot, and it revealed some enticing new details about the series. Frank Ocean’s “Super Rich Kids” plays over the trailer, which seems a fitting tribute to the indulgently pretty, privileged world of the original.

In the trailer, we learn that Zoya (Whitney Peak), fills the new-girl shoes of the O.G. Gossip Girl‘s Jenny Humphrey, as she enters the super-elite friend group who have been tight since infancy.

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When will the reboot drop?

Originally slated to debut in the fall of 2020, the Gossip Girl reboot will now hit screens on July 8, 2021.

On April 28, 2021, the show’s Twitter handle confirmed the news.

“Good afternoon, followers. I need no introduction, but these New York elite do,” the account tweeted. “Pleased to present your newest obsession—coming to @hbomax this July. Clear your calendars accordingly.”

The tweet also included a video montage of the new cast.

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The delayed release date was confirmed by HBO Max chief content officer Kevin Reilly in Vulture’s streaming TV newsletter Buffering in May of 2020. “They hadn’t even started production yet; they were in pre-production and ready to roll,” Reilly told the outlet of how the pandemic affected filming.

On October 26, production began on the series, an occasion documented by new star Emily Alyn Lind. She shared a photo of herself in the makeup trailer on her Instagram Stories: “Day 1,” she captioned the selfie.

In early November 2020, cast members Eli Brown and Whitney Peak were spotted filming a possible date scene. Then several cast members were photographed on the steps of the Met, including Lind, Brown, Peak, Evan Mock, Zión Moreno, Thomas Doherty, Jordan Alexander, Savannah Lee Smith, and Tavi Gevinson.

“It’s definitely hard during COVID; we get tested twice a day, so we just stayed in our bubbles and only hung out with each other,” Lind told Dazed in a Feb. 2021 interview. “But it actually helped so much. These friendships on the show are meant to be ones where we’ve known each other forever.”

“It’s really important to create that sense of bonding between all of us, because that’s the point of the show,” Alexander also told Dazed. “The interconnectedness of this group—who we are around this or that person and what elements of the character are brought out when they’re allowed to be that version of themselves with that character.”

What (and who) is the new Gossip Girl about?

Deadline reports that the logline for the series is, nine 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 prestige series will address just how much social media—and the landscape of New York itself—has changed in the intervening years.”

Co-creator Josh Schwartz discussed the reboot for the first time at TCA in July 2019, explaining why he wasn’t comfortable with the show focusing on the original cast.

We felt that a version with just our cast grown up, regardless of the challenges of getting those actors, didn’t feel like a group of adults controlled by “gossip girl” made much sense. We felt there was something interesting that we are all “gossip girl” in our own way and how that’s evolved, morphed and mutated and telling that story through a new generation of Upper East Side high school kids felt right.

Original showrunner and series writer Joshua Safran is involved with the new series as creator, writer and executive producer. He will be working with original series creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage’s Fake Empire production company, Alloy Entertainment, as well as Warner Bros. TV, and CBS Television Studios.

“It’s just a new look at this particular society in New York, the idea being that society changes constantly,” Safran told The Hollywood Reporter. “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.”

We also know who the new teen tyrants of the Upper East Side will be. They’re as follows:

Julien Calloway (Jordan Alexander)

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Alexander is a Canadian singer/actress who has previous credits on TV series shorts Unbury the Biscuit (2016) and Sacred Lies (2020). She was also in the film Please Kill Mr. Know It All (2012), among others.

Otto “Obie” Bergmann IV (Eli Brown)

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Brown is a Portland, Oregon, native known for the series Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists (2019) and the movie Run, Hide, Fight (2020), among other projects.

Luna La (Zión Moreno)

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Moreno made the move to acting after getting her start as a model. The Albuquerque, New Mexico native has been in K-12 (2019) and Netflix’s Control Z (2020).

Max Wolfe (Thomas Doherty)

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Doherty was in Disney’s Descendants 2 (2017), HBO’s Catherine the Great (2019), and Hulu’s High Fidelity (2020).

Audrey Hope (Emily Alyn Lind)

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In March 2020, Deadline reported that Lind (Code Black, Revenge) is a lead in the upcoming series. Lind will play Audrey, a character who “has been in a long term relationship and is beginning to wonder what more could be out there.”

The actress later opened up to Entertainment Tonight about the “intriguing” characters in the reboot. “[The creators] just have a way with creating characters that you want to watch, that you’re interested in and I’m excited to see what they do with this one,” she said. When asked if Audrey’s personality was anything like hers, Lind stayed mum. “I wish I could say!” she teased. “Let me just say I’m already in love with her and I’m really excited for everyone to meet her.”

Kate Keller (Tavi Gevinson)

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Gevinson has credits on Scream Queens, Parenthood, The Simpsons, The Twilight Zone, Neo Yokio, and more. She has also appeared on Broadway in This is Our Youth (2015), The Crucible (2016), and The Cherry Orchard (2016). She is also known for her magazine, Rookie, and was a fashion blogger as a teen.

“I’ve been following Tavi for maybe four or five years now,” cast member Jordan Alexander told Dazed. “I’m just very interested in her fashion and art. I really loved Rookie; I had every edition of (the books). It was great to be around someone with that creative energy.”

Akeno “Aki” Menzies (Evan Mock)

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Mock is a high-profile skateboarder and model for brands including Calvin Klein, Saint Laurent, and Superdry. He’s also a photographer who’s shot Travis Scott on tour and Justin Bieber’s most recent Drew House campaign. Deadline reports this will be Mock’s first acting gig.

In a recent interview with MR PORTER’s magazine, Mock spilled on what fans can expect from his character Aki. “Me and my girlfriend in the show are super into this dude, Max, and we have a threesome. It’s pretty lit. I’m not actually gay in real life, but the character is… I guess… bisexual,” Mock said, per DailyMail.”

He spoke on portraying a bisexual character even though he is not gay in real life. “I had to make out with [co-star] Thomas [Doherty], and I feel like I’m playing the character, but, for my personal life, I’m also seeing if I like it or not,” he said. “I didn’t, but you’re also asking yourself questions like, ‘Why is [kissing a man] so much weirder?’ I think it has to do with social norms and all that.”

Zoya Lott (Whitney Peak)

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Peak comes to this project after appearing in several episodes of part 3 of Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, a small role in Molly’s Game, and the CW’s iZombie.

Monet de Haan (Savannah Smith)

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In early April 2020, Deadline reported the casting of newcomer Savannah Smith as one of the show’s leads. It’ll be her first major acting credit; as of 2020, she was studying acting at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Who is directing?

As production on the Gossip Girl reboot ramped up, Karena Evans was announced as the series’ first director. Evans, who starred in 2018’s Firecrackers, will helm the first two episodes of the show.

“Josh Safran has found a perfect partner in Karena to illustrate how the landscape of social media, the Upper East Side, and the world have changed since Gossip Girl premiered 13 years ago,” Sarah Aubrey, head of HBO Max’s original content, said in a statement. “Additionally, her passion for inclusive storytelling matches Josh’s and we are proud to have her on this journey with us.”

Prior to Gossip Girl, Evans directed several music videos for Drake and episodes of P-Valley and Snowfall. “I couldn’t be more excited for Karena to launch the new series,” Safran said in a statement. “Her vision, voice, and passion are incomparable. It’s an honor and a privilege to get to work with her, and I can’t wait for everyone to see what she has planned.”

How do the new cast members compare to the originals?

Per Cosmo, Peak’s Zoya Lott will serve as our eyes into this new world of Upper East Side high school students, much like Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley) in the original series. It isn’t clear who’s the new Queen B of this world, but Audrey (Emily Alyn Lind), whose mother is an athleisure designer and who is into the “finer things in life” seems to be a contender. Max Wolfe (Doherty) seems poised to become the new version of Chuck Bass, a flirty boy who’s also the life of the party.

How else will this series be different from the original?

In a November 2019 interview at Vulture Festival, Safran delved into the new direction for the reboot. He said that, though he was hesitant about rebooting the series, he was convinced by a 2019 reimagining of the premise.

“There was not a lot of representation the first time around on the show,” he admitted. “I was the only gay writer I think the entire time I was there. Even when I went to private school in New York in the ’90s, the school didn’t necessarily reflect what was on Gossip Girl. So, this time around the leads are nonwhite. 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. The thing I can’t say is there is a twist, and that all relates to the twist.”

He also gave Cosmo some insight into the intentional new casting. “There are more than enough shows with white people centered in them,” he said. “I’m married to a Mexican American man; I am a queer man. My world is not exclusively white. No one’s is.”

Peak also shared her input with Cosmo: “I want all the hers and the hes and the theys and the people of color from all over the world to be able to watch the show and think, That’s a person who looks like me. I don’t have to be the stereotypical idea of who I am.”

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And Lind spoke with Dazed about the importance of including queer issues in the series. “I think that what we can say is this: We’re making a series in 2020 and 2021. It’s really important for us to not just talk about these things but also express them as normal things that kids deal with. It shouldn’t be this new, exciting thing to talk about, it just exists. It’s about normalizing things that used to be different or taboo.”

She also addressed how the relationships (which were often toxic, at best, in the original series), will be differently portrayed in this reboot: “Gender roles will be talked about and dissected. A lot of the women in our show are very powerful, but I think they were in the original as well. We’ll be exploring what it means to be a woman in this generation, and in general, exploring ideas that we didn’t before.”

Who’s designing the fashion?

Eric Daman, the visionary behind Serena’s go-to blazers and Blair’s preppy headbands, is bringing his expertise to the upcoming show. “OMGG I am sooo thrilled to be a part of the new GG Generation!” Daman said in a statement to Teen Vogue. “It has been incredible to see the youth of today discovering and bingeing GG during these times!! Very excited to delight and inspire all of the GG Fans, new and OG, with some delicious, trendsetting fashions for this new era! Can’t Wait!! XoXo, E.”

Does this generation of Met Steps kids think about fashion differently than Blair and Serena did in 2009? Apparently so.

“I caught myself at times being like, ‘I’m not really going to see anybody or anything but I want to wear something that makes me feel cool,” Peak said of Gen Z’s fashion sense in the Dazed interview. “I don’t think it’s ‘dress to impress,’ it’s more ‘dress how you feel.’ You feel better if you feel confident and I feel like dressing however you want makes you feel more confident.”

What can we expect from the plot?

According to Aubrey, head of original content at HBO Max, the first script she received from Safran was impressive. “We have gotten the first script and I can tell you we all breathed a big sigh of relief because it’s quite good,” Aubrey said at the TCAs last January, per Entertainment Tonight. “You can imagine the bar is very high. I think that one of the benefits of having the original creators involved, they’re very clear of what the essential elements of the show are and are not. And also, really excited to bring a modern lens to it 10 years later. Josh and team have done a great job so far.”

Safran apparently worked on scripts while working from home. In April 2020, he hinted at the tone show of the show, tweeting, “My husband just called a reference in a current GG script ‘too rarefied,’ which means I’m 100 percent on the right track. Blair walked so this could run!”

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Will the show address real-world events?

Although there isn’t much intel on that first script, Lind confirmed to ET in September 2020 that the reboot will “touch on specific subjects that are really relevant to today’s society” and “how we’re going to make sure that that is a relevant factor of the show.”

It’s unclear specifically what her comments refer to or how specifically the show will address COVID-19, which severely affected NYC in 2020. Sarah Jessica Parker has confirmed that Sex and the City’s HBO Max reboot, another famously New York city-based show, will address the pandemic because of how hard the city was hit by the virus. She told Vanity Fair that it will “obviously be part of the storyline, because that’s the city [these characters] live in.”

But Gossip Girl will take place after the COVID-19 pandemic. As Cosmo reported in its cover story, Safran confirmed the show will take place in “The After,” aka post-pandemic New York, where everyone is vaccinated and quarantine is a practice of the past.

Will the original cast make an appearance?

The new characters will reference Serena, Blair, Chuck, and Dan, but the O.G. Gossip Girl characters won’t be in the show.

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Safran explained that he thinks of the reboot of Gossip Girl in relation to the original series as “like the Marvel universe. It’s not a continuation or a sequel. It truly just is looking at a different angle.”

In regards to the original cast, he said, “I would love for everyone to come back if they wanted to. The universe still exists. The characters talk about Serena, Blair, Chuck, Dan.” When pressed about whether Badgley would return as Dan Humphrey, Safran responded, “I don’t know, I hope so,” adding, “Now that you’ve said it, I want it to.”

Blake Lively isn’t involved with the reboot.

In January 2020, Lively, who portrayed Serena van der Woodsen during the show’s original run, confirmed that she’s not “involved” in the reboot, per E! When asked about when production would begin on the project, she responded, “I don’t know. I’m not a producer. I’m not involved. You gotta call them.”

Previously, Lively had been more open to a reboot. She spoke to Variety in April 2017, saying that she’d be fairly open to doing Gossip Girl with the original cast. “It sort of all depends,” Lively said. “Would I do seven years of the show? No, because it’s hard work and I’ve got my babies, and I don’t want to be away from them that much. But I’ve just learned in life you never say never.”

Penn Badgley isn’t super interested but won’t rule out the possibility.

In the past, Badgley didn’t have much excitement about playing Dan Humphrey again. “I don’t think that could happen for maybe another 10 years because if you look at the shows that are being rebooted, they’re much older,” he told Marie Claire Australia in September 2018. “I don’t think any of us are interested in that, the creators or the cast.”

But in a December 2019 interview with Entertainment Tonight, Badgley seemed more open to the idea. “Could Dan Humphrey…? I don’t… That’s a message I gotta put at the top of my inbox, you know, to think about,” Badgley told reporter Lauren Zima. “I have not had conversations with any of the creators yet, but you know…” he teased, his voice reportedly trailing off.

He continued, “I think it’s pretty clear that, like, I’ve never been a proponent of Dan Humphrey’s. I’ve never been necessarily the greatest friend or fan of Dan Humphrey, which now I reconcile in this way that I’m like, you know, I would love to contribute in a meaningful way to it. And I guess it would just depend on a lot of things…It would depend on how and why he’s there.”

Hilary Duff would return, if asked.

In November 2019, Duff told ELLE.com that if asked, she’d be down to return to Gossip Girl. “I did hear that’s coming back and I got very excited. I would love to make a cameo,” she confirmed. Fans may remember that Duff played actress Olivia Burke in a nine-episode arc of season 3. While on the series, she lived with Vanessa (Jessica Szohr) and briefly romanced Dan (Badgley).

Leighton Meester has said she wouldn’t say no.

When Meester spoke to Vanity Fair about a possible reboot in August 2017, she seemed somewhat open to the idea of reprising the role of Blair Waldorf, but approached the topic with hesitation. “I guess I hear that [reunion talk] in fits and starts here and there, but it’s hard to say,” she said. “If everyone was into it and if the timing was right, you know? I don’t want to say, ‘No, never…’”

Meester has a clear vision of what Blair would be doing now. “When we last left Blair Waldorf, she had a kid with [Chuck Bass], and she was running her own fashion company,” she told ELLE in February 2017. “Blair Waldorf is probably about to debut her new fashion line. She’s probably doing New York Fashion Week! She’s got a runway somewhere.”

After the news dropped that a reboot was a possibility, Meester was asked by E! News in April 2019 if she would be open to doing Gossip Girl again. “No one’s ever asked me,” she responded. “No one’s ever talked to me about it except for in interviews, and I always say the same. I never say never. So, I don’t know. No one’s sent me that information, it’s coming from you.”

Chace Crawford has said he definitely wants to make a cameo in the reboot.

In December 2018, Crawford told Us Weekly that he would “be open to talking about something” but was under the impression that a reboot wasn’t in discussion.

Then, in July 2019, Crawford mused a limited series could be a possibility—and he’d be down to appear in it, telling Digital Spy, “I don’t know what it would look like with us being in our 30s now, but I always say, because it was such a big part of my life, I’m open to anything. It would have to be really right, and really specific, and with TV and the golden age of the TV streaming service, maybe an eight-episode season…”

Crawford pointed out it wouldn’t be easy to assemble all the original stars. “It would be very tough to get everybody on board I think because of their schedules, Penn, Leighton, Ed…The reboot might come in the form of new characters. I would absolutely cameo. I’d have to!”

We know now that we are getting 10 one-hour episodes. Does that meet Crawford’s standards?

Ed Westwick is not really a fan of the idea.

When Westwick sat down for an interview with Radio Times in May 2017, he said that he feels like the idea of a Gossip Girl reboot is impossible, and that his character, Chuck Bass, is “played out.”

“Nah, that’s not gonna happen,” he told the interviewer. “I know there’s a bunch of them coming back—I hear they’re doing Will and Grace, they’ve done Gilmore Girls… But it’s such a strange thing to think about. It feels like we only just finished! And I haven’t done enough in between yet to feel like I could comfortably revisit it. And I did so much with that character—it’s played out, man. It’s done.” In spite of his harsh words, Westwick said he would take up the opportunity to play Chuck again—but only if he was offered millions of dollars.

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Taylor Momsen has since quit acting, so it’s unlikely she’d return.

Momsen experienced growing pains when filming Gossip Girl. While on set, she focused her attention on music and eventually began touring with her rock band, The Pretty Reckless. “I’m very lucky that the producers were nice enough to write me out, allow me to tour, and pursue my passion, because they very easily could have told me to go f–k myself and keep me on the show,” she told The Daily Beast in 2014. And as far as returning to play Jenny Humphrey? “I’m not looking to go back to it,” she told Riverfront Times in 2014. “Gossip Girl was a great experience, and it helped in one way and hurt in another, but it feels like forever ago.”

Where will the new Gossip Girl take place?

The show will venture beyond the Upper East Side, believe it or not.

“Not everyone lives on the Upper East Side, though,” Safran told ET when explaining the new show’s vision. “Brooklyn’s not the bad place to live. Brooklyn’s probably cooler in the new version than Manhattan, ‘cause it is in some places [in real life]. Other than that, it has the DNA of the original.” As for how controversial the series will get, no matter the borough? Safran admitted to the outlet, “Luckily, we’ll be airing post-Euphoria, so anything we do will seem tame by comparison. I don’t think we’ll be that controversial.”

Will Kristen Bell reprise her role as narrator?

Absolutely. On November 7, 2019, The Wrap reported that Kristen Bell will narrate the new series, just as she did for the original’s first six seasons. “Kristen Bell has always been and will always be the voice of Gossip Girl,” the producers said in a statement.

Bell’s timeless sign-off, “You know you love me, XOXO, Gossip Girl,” appeared in all 121 episodes of the show. The actress also appeared on the CW series in a quick cameo in the series finale.

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So what is the new “Gossip Girl”? A blog? A social media account?

Safran didn’t tell Cosmo exactly what he meant by this, but modern Gossip Girl is apparently much more than a blog. It’s now a social-media app or platform of some kind. Sounds…terrifying.

“My hope is that we make it to airing and people don’t know,” Safran told Cosmo about what, exactly Gossip Girl 2.0 is. “I would love to see that conversation happen in the context of people having seen it as opposed to talking about something they haven’t seen.”

Where will the show air?

The series premiere will hit HBO Max on Thursday, July 8, and will then air on The CW as part of an hour and a half long special on July 9 at 8 p.m., per The Hollywood Reporter. However, there are no current plans for the remainder of the series to air on cable, so if you want to watch each episode as it drops weekly, you’ll need a subscription (or free trial) for HBO Max.

Watch Gossip Girl (2007) on HBO Max

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