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Ouch, that’s harsh.
A top HBO Max exec has revealed for the first time how the new “Sex and the City” revival plans to explain the glaring absence of unapologetically libidinous Samantha Jones: “Friendships fade.”
The bombshell revelation was dropped by the streaming platform’s own Mr. Big on Wednesday morning.
“Just as in real life, people come into your life, people leave,” Casey Bloys, HBO Max’s chief content officer, told TV Line. “Friendships fade, and new friendships start. So I think it is all very indicative of the real stages, the actual stages of life.”
Bloys said the new “SATC” series, titled “And Just Like That,” is really all about growing up — despite chatter about co-stars Sarah Jessica Parker, 55, and Kim Cattrall, 64, turning against each other amid a barrage of cast infighting and toxic “mean girl” culture.
“They’re not trying to say that these characters are reliving their 30s,” Bloys told the outlet. “It is very much a story about women in their 50s, and they are dealing with things that people deal with in their 50s. They’re trying to tell an honest story about being a woman in her 50s in New York. So it should all feel somewhat organic, and the friends that you have when you’re 30, you may not have when you’re 50.”
So, they basically outgrew Samantha? Die-hard fans aren’t likely to be satisfied with that.
While the other lead characters get mired in unrequited love, infertility and career struggles over the years — Samantha was the one who actually put the sex into “SATC.” As The Post’s entertainment critic Johnny Oleksinski once put it, “her average plotline centers around ‘Should I bed this Staten Island firefighter?’ (She does.)”
Parker first teased the new show with fans in January, via Instagram, with the caption: “I couldn’t help but wonder… where are they now?” The footage featured a montage of life in NY, concluding with the words, “The story continues . . .” as if typed on Carrie’s iconic computer screen.
“And just like that,” Parker’s voice-over can be heard saying against the preview, which had been viewed nearly 4.5 million times less than 24 hours after it posted.
It was soon announced that “And Just Like That” would tell the next chapter in the tale of lifestyle columnist Carrie Bradshaw (Parker) as it follows the gal pals, including gallerist Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) and attorney Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) in 10 half-hour episodes, which begin production in late spring.
But when fans learned it would not include sexpot publicist Samantha, the backlash was fast and furious: “Sex and the City without Kim Cattrall is like watching porn without Sex. Samantha is the powerhouse of #Sexandthecity,” wrote @MusewitheMoon on Twitter.
Gerry Stergiopoulos tweeted, “‘Sex and the City’ without Samantha is like ‘Snow White & the 7 Dwarfs’ without Snow White. Just the dwarfs . . .”
The feud between the “SATC” co-stars raged for years following the original series’ end in 2004, after six years on air. The four women went on to make two sequel films, which premiered in theaters in 2008 and 2010. Since then, Cattrall has been pitted against her three former on-screen colleagues in the headlines. Insiders claimed that tensions arose early in the series, with Cattrall being called “a scene-stealer in the best possible sense,” despite Parker playing the show’s heroine.
In 2017, sources claimed that Cattrall had been the force behind the demise of a third sequel, with Parker saying she was “disappointed” by the outcome. “We had this beautiful, funny, heartbreaking, joyful, very relatable script,” she said at the time in a statement.
Still, “the answer was always no,” Cattrall told Piers Morgan during an interview in response to Parker’s 2017 announcement. “I never asked for any money, I never asked for any projects. To be thought of as some kind of diva is ridiculous.”
Parker brushed off murmurings of a feud when the reboot was announced, according to Page Six. After fans on social media voiced their disappointment, Parker echoed their sentiments. “Happy to see you back but will miss Kim/Samantha,” one commenter wrote on 55-year-old Parker’s Instagram, to which she replied, “We will too. We loved her so. X”
However, while Cattrall’s Samantha won’t be back — the show is promising more diversity in the writing staff, as well as new characters played by Samantha Irby, Rachna Fruchbom (“Fresh Off the Boat”) and Keli Goff (“Black Lightning”).
Bloys told TV Line Parker and show creator Michael Patrick King “didn’t want to tell a story with all-white writers or an all-white cast. It’s not reflective of New York. So they are being very, very conscious about understanding that New York has to reflect the way New York looks today.”
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