Gossip Girl is back with some fresh new faces.
"Did you miss me? I know I've missed you," says the all-seeing, anonymous Gossip Girl (voiced again by Kristen Bell) at one point in the trailer, which HBO Max debuted Thursday ahead of its July 8 launch.
The reboot of The CW's iconic teen series stars a whole new group of privileged New York City students getting entangled in drama under the watchful eye of Gossip Girl, who this time stalks the school via an Instagram account.
HBO Max's Gossip Girl is intended to be a continuation of the beloved series and "completely different" from its predecessor. While the original cast members are not set to make any appearances, their characters do exist in the updated world that's been created for the reboot.
The new cast includes: Whitney Peak, Emily Alyn Lind, Evan Mock, Jordan Alexander, Thomas Doherty, Eli Brown, Zión Moreno, Savannah Smith and Tavi Gevinson.
The original Gossip Girl, based on the Cecily von Ziegesar book series, ran for six seasons between 2007 and 2012, starring Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Penn Badgley, Chace Crawford and Ed Westwick.
When the cast told Cosmopolitan all about the show in April, Gevinson explained how class and privilege play an even bigger part in the reboot: "Part of the fun of watching the old one at the time was, 'Oh, this is what it's like to be a very privileged teenager who can act with impunity,' and living vicariously through that. But with this show, class resentment is a much more explicit part of it, which I'm very in tune with."
Smith told the magazine about the significance of the show's diversity.
"It's really important for a Black girl, with twists in her hair, to be able to see someone in a position of power who looks like her. And it's also important for kids in the suburbs or kids who don't have a lot of Black friends or friends of color just to generally see us depicted in different ways," she said. "I think this could really change things. Maybe they're not learning these things at home, but they're seeing them on Gossip Girl. How amazing is that?"
Gossip Girl premieres July 8 on HBO Max.