Gossip Girl: Kristen Bell returns as ominous narrator in first teaser for new series

Reboot arrives on HBO Max on 8 July

HBO Max has unveiled a first teaser for its upcoming Gossip Girl reboot.

Kristen Bell, who voiced the titular character in the original series, is returning as the narrator of the new show.

“You’ve gotten so comfortable,” she says while images of the new cast flash onto the screen, “thinking you’re in control of your image, your actions, the narrative – that you forgot one thing: I can see you. And before I’m through, I’ll make sure you see you too.”

A chorus of voices recites her trademark sign-off: “You know you love me.”

Bell then adds: “Xoxo”. In the original series, this is when Gossip Girl would usually say her own name as a vocal signature, but the teaser ends here.

The teaser provides a glimpse into the new show’s aesthetic.

Technology, which played a major part in the original, has changed – think smartphone and ring lights instead of flip phones and blog posts.

Jordan Alexander, Eli Brown, Thomas Doherty, Tavi Gevinson, Emily Alyn Lind, Evan Mock, Zion Moreno, Whitney Peak and Savannah Lee Smith have all been cast in the series.

Set to premiere on 8 July on HBO Max, the reboot – also titled Gossip Girl – “takes us back to the Upper East Side finding a new generation of New York private school teens being introduced to social surveillance nine years after the original blogger’s website went dark”, according to a synopsis unveiled by the streaming service.

The reboot is based both on the original series, which ran between 2007 and 2012 on The CW in the US, and on the series of novels by Cecily von Ziegesar that inspired it.