Sarah Jessica Parker surprised fans last night with a teaser of "And Just Like That," HBO Max's reboot of "Sex and the City." Parker will executive produce the 10-episode, half hour series alongside Cynthia Nixon and Kristen Davis, who will also co-star.
"The series will follow Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte as they navigate the journey from the complicated reality of life and friendship in their 30s to the even more complicated reality of life and friendship in their 50s," according to HBO Max's press release.
Will I watch the series? Sure. Am I excited about it? Not really, because Kim Cattrall won't be part of this reboot and she's crucial to SATC's success (yes, even the second movie). Alas, Cattrall vowed never to touch any future projects related to the series with a 10-foot poll.
"Me playing her [Samatha Jones], that I can assure you will never happen. For me it’s over, it’s over with no regrets," Cattrall told Piers Morgan in 2017.
Cattrall's decision to distance herself from any future projects related to "Sex and the City" reportedly had to do with the third movie's script. According to E!, Cattrall was disappointed in her character's storyline (in it, Miranda's son Brandy sexts Samantha. Not only that, but Big dies in the shower).
“Kim never wanted to really do the movie to begin with,” a source told E!. “It was a combination of not-great money and a bad storyline for Samantha. It was a bad script.”
Cattrall more or less confirmed this to Morgan in the same interview, wanting to make sure that readers didn't confuse her lack of interest in making the movie with outrageous demands.
"The answer was always no and a respectful, firm, no," she said. "I never asked for any money, I never asked for any projects, to be thought of as some kind of diva is absolutely ridiculous."
The lady hath spoken, the project is officially moving ahead and I'm left wondering if the character dynamics are going to work.
I won't miss Samantha simply because of her overt sexual prowess (although that was entertaining). I'll miss her because she balanced out the other personalities quite nicely. We can't expect Miranda alone to manage a self-absorbed Carrie (Charlotte is too nice to administer tough love). Samantha acted as the voice of reason most of the time, a calming force when her friends got too worked up over men, jobs, rent or wedding planning.
Remember the first time Carrie broke up with Big and tried to use the three of them as therapists? Samantha spearheaded that intervention over iced tea. "Look, we're as f*cked up as you are. It's like the blind leading the blind," she told her wayward friend, who would then go to therapy, sleep with Jon Bon Jovi and never learn her lesson.
With this reboot focusing on Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda in their 50s, I want to know if they'll make any mention at all of Samantha, if only for her fans' sake. One thing they cannot do is recast her. There can only be one Samantha Jones played by the one and only Kim Cattrall.
Production on "And Just Like That" is scheduled to start later this spring.