No movie, but how about reboot?
On the 20th anniversary of creator Darren Star reflects on the future of the ground-breaking series
ORE than 20 years ago,
Darren Star was ready to hold auditions for a new show about female friendships and sexual relationships, titled Sex and the City.
Star, who had just created Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place, needed to find his core four – the actresses who would soon become known to the world as Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha.
Today, those four names and the actresses who portrayed them – Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon – are synonymous with one of the biggest pop culture phenomenons in TV history. And the show still resonates.
So what’s next for Sex and the City? We find out.
MWhy do you think the show still resonates with audiences?
It really is a testament to those characters and those actresses. Ultimately, I think the show is about something that’s universal — friendships and relationships. It’s gratifying to know that audiences still care about the show and is still invested in it, after all these years.
Being a female-forward show, was there any push-back from networks at the time you were pitching the show?
That’s one reason I wanted to bring it to HBO – they were looking to do things that were out of the box and not thought of as commercial. They were always supportive of really pushing boundaries and from the beginning I really looked at the show as being the equivalent of an independent film for television. It was not so commercial. I never wanted it to be. I never thought it was appropriate material for one of the broadcast networks.
Looking back, do you consider Sex and the City to be ahead of its time?
I felt that I was doing something that had not been done on television before quite this way, but I also feel like network TV is very behind the times, so it wasn’t ahead of its time, in terms of reflecting the lives of these characters and it felt like the audience was ready to see this show.
Broadcast television has always been very behind the curve of what’s permissible. It’s very sanitised. If this was going to be a show that was going to be about sexual relationships and was going to be very frank and honest, this was obviously not going to be appropriate for broadcast television, but I felt the adult audience out there was certainly ready for this show.
Could Sex and the City have been around today?
The show is a reflection of its time. Of course, I think there are shows like it that are around today – I think Girls has elements of Sex and the City – and I think there’s always going to be shows that are honest about female points of view and shows and that are honest about sex and relationships. I feel like there are many more shows like that out there now. At the time that we did Sex and the City, the landscape was so different. There weren’t many places to programme a show like that or many companies that would take the kind of risk that HBO did.
Plans fell through for a third film, reportedly because of some casting issues. Can you discuss anything that happened?
I would say I have about as much information on a third movie as you do, so I have nothing to add to that.
We’re in the age of TV reboots and revivals. Would you ever be interested in doing a TV reboot?
I think a reboot of Sex and the City with a different cast, I’m not sure what that would be. But a reboot with the original cast, 100%. I’m there for that. I would love to be a part of that. If everybody comes back for that, that would be wonderful. I think Will & Grace has done it brilliantly and there’s the model for it. – Variety