The Gossip Girl sequel has been canceled after 2 seasons on HBO Max

NYC’s messiest Instagram account is writing “XOXOs” for the last time. Gossip Girl, the HBO Max series and the sequel to the CW hit of the same name have been cancelled, the streamer announced on Thursday. The news comes in the middle of the show’s Season 2, which began on December 1st and will conclude on January 26th.

In a tweet Thursday, showrunner and executive producer Joshua Safran said he plans to shop Gossip Girl to other outlets.

“We’re looking for another home right now, but in this climate it could be an uphill battle, and if this is the end, at least we’ve gone to the top,” Safran said. wrote in his tweet.

The series, which premiered to much fanfare in July 2021, is a sequel to the 2007 original series of the same name created by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage. Based on the young-adult series by Cecily von Ziegesar, the original series focused on a group of privileged Upper East Side teenagers (played by Blake Lively, Leighton Meester and Penn Badgley) who attend the fictional Constance Billard and St. Jude schools. who are terrorized by the anonymous ‘Gossip Girl’ blog, which publishes the dirtiest secrets of the city’s rich and glamorous.

The new series, which follows the six-season run of the original, which ended in 2012, focuses on a new generation of teenagers at the school and their troubled teachers, who revive the Gossip Girl brand as an Instagram account in a questionably ethical attempt to retain their students. In line.

“We are so grateful to showrunner/executive producer Joshua Safran, along with Stephanie Savage and Josh Schwartz, for bringing us back to the Upper East Side and the scandals at Constance Billard,” HBO Max said in a statement. “While we’re not moving forward with a third season of Gossip Girl, we thank them for the tantalizing love triangles, calculated backstabbing, and impeccable fashion that this show brought to a new audience.”

The “Gossip Girl” series was initially successful, with HBO Max reporting that the first episode broke the record for the streamer’s most-watched show in its debut weekend. According to a source familiar with the situation, the show’s ratings declined during its first and second seasons, and the cancellation decision was based on the show’s underperformance rather than as a cost-cutting measure, which has become common at Warner Bros. Discovery

Reviews of Season 1 were negative, criticizing the series for its writing, pacing, and lack of the messy drama that made the original series so appealing. IndieWire’s TV critic Ben Travers gave the series a “C-” grade for the first season, calling it a “deficit show” that “seems as glossy, buttoned-up, and boring as its influencer’s Instagram page.” Season 2 of the series was relatively better received than the first, scoring 68 points on Metacritic compared to the first season’s 51 (albeit based on a much smaller sample).

Gossip Girl 2.0 stars half-sisters Jordan Alexander and Whitney Peak, Julien and Zoya, while Eli Brown, Thomas Doherty, Emily Alyn Lind, Evan Mock, Zión Moreno and Savannah Lee Smith play the other teenagers in their social circle. Tavi Gevinson (a former fashion blogger, somewhat meta casting for the series) plays the English teacher who runs the Gossip Girl account. Other series regulars and recurring cast members include Johnathan Fernandez, Adam Chanler-Berat, Todd Almond, Laura Benanti, Grace Duah, and Megan Ferguson. None of the main characters from the original series returned, but Michelle Trachtenberg reprized her manipulative socialite Georgina Sparks in Season 2.

Safran executive produced “Gossip Girl” for Random Acts, Schwartz and Savage produced for Fake Empire, and Leslie Morgenstein and Gina Girolamo produced for Alloy Entertainment. Lis Rowinski is co-executive producer for Fake Empire. Warner Bros. Television and CBS Studios produced the series for HBO Max.

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