Sex And The City revived at HBO Max—yes, without Kim Cattrall

Well, it’s not Sex And The City but with Samatha as a cat named Fred, but we are indeed getting a new chapter of the HBO series—and it is indeed without Kim Cattrall. “I couldn’t help but wonder… where are they now?” SATC star Sarah Jessica Parker posted on Instagram Sunday along with a video teasing a new HBO Max series called And Just Like That…

The new series will follow Parker’s Carrie, Kristin Davis’ Charlotte, and Cynthia Nixon’s Miranda “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,” reads a press release sent to The A.V. Club. The ten-episode, half-hour series—named after a phrase Carrie uttered often via voiceover—is scheduled to begin production in New York late spring. Parker, Davis, and Nixon will executive produce alongside original series producer, writer, and director Michael Patrick King.

“I grew up with these characters, and I can’t wait to see how their story has evolved in this new chapter, with the honesty, poignancy, humor and the beloved city that has always defined them,” says HBO Max’s head of original content, Sarah Aubrey. Of course, one story that won’t be evolving—at least on camera—is the fourth member of SATC’s foursome, Samantha. Actress Kim Cattrall has long had a tense relationship with Parker, and in the years since the poorly received sequel movie the Filthy Rich actress has been vocal about not wanting to return to the character. “It’s a no from me,” Cattrall told Mail Online in 2019. “You learn lessons in life and my
lesson is to do work with good people and try and make it fun.”

For her part, Parker has denied any “feud” between the actresses. “There is no catfight, there never has been a catfight,” Parker told Vulture in 2018. “I’ve never fought with someone publicly in my life, nor would I.
And I spent time with all of the women on the set. People need to
recall that it wasn’t just two women on the set fighting, because that
just never happened. We are enormously proud of what we got to do… We
spent 10, 12 years of our life doing something that I really loved and I
feel privileged to be part of and I don’t want this to eclipse it or
change its experience for that audience that was so good to us for so
long.”

HBO Max’s press release makes no mention of how the series will handle Samantha’s absence—though Cattrall has suggested that perhaps Samantha return but recast as a BIPOC actress. “It’s a great part. I played it past the finish line and then some, and I
loved it,” she said in a 2017 interview with Piers Morgan. “Another actress should play it — maybe they could
make it an African-American Samantha Jones or a Hispanic Samantha
Jones.”

Cattrall has yet to acknowledge the new project on social media, but maybe that’s because she’s on a long walk.