It's time to get out of those comfy sweats and slippers and squeeze back into your couture gowns and ridiculously expensive heels because Sex and the City might be getting a reboot at HBO Max. According to a report from the New York Post published Tuesday, Dec. 22, the streaming service is hoping to bring back the R-rated comedy for "a limited series reboot." The only catch: it'll have to be with Kim Cattrall. And she couldn't help but wonder, was a Sex and the City reboot without Samantha even a reboot at all?
None of the original cast has commented on the rumors, but Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, and Kristin Davis have expressed enthusiasm at the idea of returning to their Manolo Blahniks before. "I'd like to see where all of them are," Parker said of her Sex and the City crew in a 2019 interview with Entertainment Tonight. The actor also added that she'd love to see Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte deal with social media and hear their thoughts on the "sexual politics" of a post-#MeToo and Time's Up world. "I think Carrie Bradshaw would just be so greedy to share her feelings and thoughts," she teased. A year before that interview, Sex and the City creator Darren Star also said he would "100%" support a reboot with the original cast.
Cattrall, on the other hand, has been adamant about her desire to leave Sex and the City behind her. "It's a no from me," she told Mail Online of the idea of reprising her role as Samantha, a sentiment she recently reiterated in an interview with the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast, per ET. Upon hearing the news of a Samantha-less reboot, fans took to Twitter to note their skepticism.
And while I don't really want to see a Sex and the City reboot without Samantha (or with her, to be honest), having a spot open for a new series regular might actually be a blessing in disguise. In fact, it might be the only thing that makes a Sex and the City reboot worth doing in the first place.
Over the years, a lot has been written about how overwhelmingly white and straight Sex and the City was. Nixon said it best in 2019, when she told reporters at the Tribeca Film Festival that Sex and the City was the embodiment of early 2000s white feminism. "I think it has a lot of the failings of the feminist movement in it," she said at the time, via IndieWire. "In that it's like white, moneyed ladies who are fighting for their empowerment. In a bit of a bubble." Getting to add a new voice to the group might help change that, and give the show a much-needed 2021 update.
Nixon herself hinted at this idea a few months ago during an appearance on Watch What Happens Live when she was asked about who could replace Cattrall as Samantha. "I've also heard many people say, including Kim Cattrall herself, that if we were to have a different fourth woman that maybe it would be a woman of color this time," she said in part. "And I think that would be amazing."
There is no Sex and the City without Samantha, but there also cannot be a Sex and the City reboot without a serious reckoning of how the original franchise excluded people of color. And so, if the reboot is going to happen without Cattrall, it might as well actually do some of the work to make the show more representative of New York City.
Image: HBO