The BBC is getting into the ‘Gossip Girl‘ business, as they not only pick up the all-new HBO Max reboot/continuation of the teen drama, but also all 6 Seasons of the original show.
For those of you unfamiliar with the ‘Gossip Girl’ phenomenon, the original drama was created by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, based on the books by Cecily von Ziegesar. The story revolved around a group of privileged teens living on the Upper East Side of New York, who could hide no secret from the omniscient blogger, “Gossip Girl”, who was always watching. The original ran for 6 seasons from 2007 to 2012 on The CW, and made huge stars out of the cast, which included Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Penn Badgley, Chace Crawford and Ed Westwick.
The new 10-episode 2021 version, which launches this month on HBO Max in the USA, is set eight years after the original website went dark, as a new generation of New York private school teens are introduced to the social surveillance of “Gossip Girl”. Developed by showrunner Joshua Safran, a writer and executive producer on the original series, this extension of the pop culture classic explores just how much social media – and the landscape of New York itself – has changed in the intervening years.
The 2021 series stars Jordan Alexander, Eli Brown, Thomas Doherty, Tavi Gevinson, Emily Alyn Lind, Evan Mock, Zion Moreno, Whitney Peak and Savannah Lee Smith.
“The BBC has a rich track record of acquiring some of the best content from around the world to complement our original commissions and we are delighted to be reacquainting existing fans and introducing new viewers to the iconic world of Gossip Girl on BBC iPlayer,” comments Dan McGolpin, Director, BBC iPlayer and Channels. “The original series defined an era and we cannot wait for everyone to see the new series with its exciting new generation.”
‘Gossip Girl’ is produced by Fake Empire and Alloy Entertainment in association with Warner Bros. Television and CBS Studios, and was acquired by BBC Programme Acquisition. The series is written, executive produced and developed by Joshua Safran of Random Acts. Executive producers also include Josh Schwartz and Stephanie 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‘, both the original CW series and the new 2021 HBO Max series, will air later this year on BBC iPlayer and BBC One.
