Gossip Girl: Will the original cast be involved in the reboot?

Hey Upper East Siders, there’s a Gossip Girl reboot on its way. The big question for many is whether the original cast will be involved in the HBO Max project.

It’s the season of reboots, Upper East Siders. That’s right, Gossip Girl is being redone for the HBO Max streaming platform. You know, the platform that WarnerMedia is bringing at some point in spring 2020. Now the big question is whether any of the original cast members will be joining the production.

Gossip Girl on The CW made household names of Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Chace Crawford, Penn Badgley, Ed Westwick, Taylor Momsen, and many more. We all wanted to be them. Well, sort of. As the characters grew up and stopped being so selfish, we wanted to be them.

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The Gossip Girl reboot is going to be created by the original’s co-creator Josh Schwartz. That’s great, but there are no plans to involve the original cast. Unlike the Veronica Mars revival, which was contingent on some of the original cast agreeing to be part of the series, that’s not the case here.

Instead, the reboot is a little like the Pretty Little Liars spin-off, The Perfectionist. It’s going to be set around a different group of Upper East Side teens, eight years after the original website went dark.

That doesn’t mean the original cast will never show up. I think it’s going to be a little like the 90210 spin-off. The original cast members are welcome but they don’t need to appear. It’s not going to be easy for some of them, after all, as they have their own projects. Badgley is involved in Netflix’s You, Meester is starring in Single Parents, Crawford has The Boys, and Lively has just inked a first-look deal with Amazon Studios.

What about Kristen Bell? She did voice GG after all. There’s nothing to say that Bell will return, but she would likely be the easiest person to bring back. Her voiceovers could be recorded separately and added in as necessary, making it easier to fit around her busy schedule. Or the show could opt for a new Gossip Girl.

According to Deadline, Schwartz and his creative team have reached out to the original stars. If they want to be involved, they can be. However, there’s no pressure on them returning.

The original series came about as social media was extremely new. It highlighted the pros and cons of social media, but that world has vastly changed in the last few years. This is something the reboot will look at. The new Gossip Girl will be set in this changed world, looking at the development of social media and New York City as a whole.

I’ll keep an eye on the news. I’m not sure a Gossip Girl reboot is really needed right now, but maybe that’s just because it’s been too soon for the original. But until more news is out, XOXO!

Would you like to see the original cast members return? Who needs to be part of the reboot for you to enjoy it? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Gossip Girl will be rebooted on the HBO Max streaming service.