CULTURE

A Gossip Girl Reboot Is Reportedly in “Discussions” at the CW

Big news, Upper East Siders!


GOSSIP GIRL, (back row, l to r): Penn Badgley, Ed Westwick, Taylor Momsen, (front): Blake Lively, Ch
The CW/Courtesy Everett Collection

Three words, 16 letters—say it and we’re yours, CW execs: Gossip Girl reboot. While it may have taken a certain playboy two full seasons to fill in the blanks for his girlfriend, the powers that be at the CW might be making Upper East Siders’ dreams come true much sooner than expected. At the Television Critics Association press tour this week, CW president Mark Pedowitz told reporters that the network is definitely open to rebooting Gossip Girl and in fact is already in talks to do so.

“There’s a discussion, but I don’t know if we’re there yet,” Pedowitz said, according to TVLine. “I don’t know what it would be. A lot is up to Warner Bros. and Josh and Steph ’cause you don’t want to do anything without them,” he continued, referring to Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, creators and executive producers of the original series.

For their part, as recently as 2016, Schwartz and Savage claimed the idea of a reboot hadn’t even crossed their minds. “We haven’t really explored some of those conversations,” Schwartz said at the ATX TV Festival that year. “Maybe, I don’t know. We haven’t really thought about it.” When pressed to actually think about it, though, Schwartz admitted that the show’s conceit would work especially well with all the social media platforms that have become ubiquitous since the 2012 finale. “The Internet has changed,” he said. “The world has become Gossip Girl now….Now, literally everyone is Gossip Girl.”

The show’s stars, meanwhile, are of mixed opinions about the possibility of bringing it back. In 2017, Blake Lively said she would be open to stepping back into Serena van der Woodsen’s red-soled boots. “It sort of all depends. 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,” she told Variety at the time. “I’m looking to do something that I haven’t done yet, not something that I did. But would I do that? Who knows—if it was good, if it made sense. We had so much fun shooting and living and working in New York City.”

Leighton Meester, however, was less sure—despite the fact that Blair Waldorf’s beloved headbands are now officially back on trend. In a 2018 interview with Porter, she described spending several of her teenage and young-adult years filming the show as not the “healthiest environment.” And though she noted that she “wouldn’t trade it for anything,” she added, “A lot of the questions that come from it are: ‘Do you miss it?’ ‘Did you love what you wore?’ And I understand that, but—and I say this with nothing but love—it is like saying, ‘High school was an amazing time for you. Do you wish you could go back?’ And the truth is, it was so special and such a unique, amazing experience, but no, I wouldn’t wanna go back to it. I was a kid!”

Hopefully, by the time those “discussions” over at the CW pan out, Meester and the rest of her castmates will have been convinced to make their triumphant return to the backstabbing UES. Only time will tell. XOXO, Gossip Girl.

Related: Penn Badgley Talks About His “Toxic” Characters in Gossip Girl and You