Gossip Girl News (Page 21)

Gossip Girl may not get the ratings, but it will sure get people talking. Its newest advertising campaigns will make certain of that.

The show's second season begins September 1, following an August promotion to put viewers... in the proper mood. A very sexy mood.

And in an ironic twist, racy new Gossip Girl ads co-opt language from the very criticism of the show for being too, well, racy.

Alert surfers got a preview last week, when images of coupled-up Gossip Girl characters found their way onto several websites.

For example, Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) appears with her eyes shut dreamily, mouth open, while a "friend" nuzzles her neck.

Strongly suggesting the pair are just getting started, the headline, which quotes The Boston Herald, declares: "Every Parent's Nightmare."

Then there's one featuring the morally bankrupt Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick) seductively feeding some girl cherries. "Very Bad For You," indeed.

Follow the jump for more of the new Gossip Girl ads ...

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The CW has lifted its ban on Internet streaming of Gossip Girl.

The network made headlines last spring when it announced it would stop streaming episodes of the hot show on its official site.

At the time, CW executives described it as an experiment.

Turns out the experiment didn't quite work out.

Ratings for the show didn't go up noticeably. And fans protested loudly, even though Gossip Girl was still available for purchase on iTunes.

Now CW Entertainment President Dawn Ostroff says Gossip Girl will once again be streamed on the network's Web site, as well as other sites.

The show will also be available for purchase online.

The biggest mystery of the CW – other than why it's frickin' called the CW (Country and Western? Chace and Westwick?) – is why it's building much of its fall season around what so far has been one of the least-successful shows on TV.

But according to CW entertainment president Dawn Ostroff, who next season will add two new casts of rich teens - 90210 and Privileged - to the network lineup, it's not Gossip Girl that's a problem, but the Nielsens themselves.

"Gossip Girl is one of the great mysteries of the television universe," Ostroff told reporters this weekend.

"We have a show that everybody is talking about. We do research all over the country. We can't go anywhere without having women talk about Gossip Girl."

Still, when the show returned from the writers strike in the spring, it was to an audience of fewer than 2 million viewers.

Best. Show. Ever. We think so. But ratings say the opposite.

Ostroff sees a "disconnect," noting that there's an ad agency, Optimedia, that's created its own super-modern ratings system, one that counts "television, downloads, iTunes, mobile."

Buoyed by the hot Gossip Girl cast and younger viewers, the show is No. 15 on all TV on that list. Whatever that's worth.

"Every viewer must be counted, and no viewer should be left behind," she said.

Hopefully, there will be more of them come September 1. Please, tell your friends about Gossip Girl. They will like it.

The CW had shows (and has shows) that fit the Gossip Girl prototype, and it's no secret that it's trying to clone Gossip Girl's success.

Why is the network clinging this hard to the Gossip Girl model?

In a word, heart. This has always been evident in show like Gilmore Girls, as well as in past classics like Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the emotional connection drove the series), Felicity and Everwood.

While Gossip Girl is high-gloss, guilty-pleasure trash on one level, it often upends its own superficial, designer fashion-label obsessions with irony, wit and even despair. That and terrific characters. In short, it's all heart, baby.

There will be no Gossip Girl spin-off starring Taylor Momsen (Jenny Humphrey), as was rumored earlier this summer - at least not yet.

But there's no question that this season The CW is churning out Gossip Girl clones on an assembly line and leaning on nostalgic affection for the old 90210 brand to carry the network into an uncertain future.

Can 90210 make it? And can Gossip Girl live up to its enormous buzz in its second season? Only time will tell - but we certainly hope so.

OMFG. Consider the Gossip Girl word spread.

The CW hit received a leading and whopping 14 nominations yesterday morning for the Teen Choice 2008 Awards.

Gossip Girl earned a nomination for TV Drama, as well as for stars Penn Badgley, Chace Crawford, Blake Lively and Leighton Meester.

The show also was nominated in the categories of Breakout Show, Breakout Star Male (Chace Crawford, Ed Westwick), Breakout Star Female (Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Taylor Momsen), TV Villain (Ed Westwick).

Congratulations to the show and to the sexy and talented Gossip Girl cast members. For the full list of nominations click here!

Despite massive amounts of Gossip Girl gossip suggesting as much, Jenny Humphrey is not going anywhere yet.

After the Hollywood Reporter posted about a possible Gossip Girl spin-off starring Taylor Momsen (Jenny) executive producer Josh Schwartz told E! Online that the rumors are just... gossip.

"Not sure how this story got out there, but no plans for spinoff at this moment," Schwartz, the show's creator and head honcho, said.

Calling Gossip Girl spin-off talk premature, he said, "The books have a spin-off, but we have nothing in the works now other than making sure Season 2 gets off to a great start."

At least for now, Taylor Momsen will remain on the cast of Gossip Girl, and no spin-off of the teen drama is in the works - for now.

If so, you could be on Gossip Girl!

Central Casting New York is searching for background people for Gossip Girl from 1-4 p.m. Sunday, June 14, at Pink Elephant in Southampton, N.Y.

The work would be at any point between June 19-24.

If you happen to live or vacation out there, this is a great chance to be in the general vicinity as Blake Lively.

Think about it.

The casting folks are looking for peeps to play UES types, sexy young Manhattan socialites, conservative preppies and so on. Dress the part!

Blake Lively and the rest of the Gossip Girl cast will be on location on Long Island's Hampton's region - and they're looking for extras!

Brace yourselves for this piece of Gossip Girl news.

The producers of Gossip Girl are considering a possible spin-off set at the girls' boarding school - basing the new series either on Jenny Humphrey (Taylor Momsen), and/or on a new character.

The new character, if that route is chosen, would be introduced after the original Gossip Girl returns for Season 2 this fall.

In either case, the spinoff is likely to focus on the storyline of Taylor Momsen's character, Jenny, from the book series.

Jenny Humphrey is a self-esteem challenged outsider who, in the books and to an extent on the TV version of Gossip Girl as well, faces a series of humiliating, public embarrassments.

As a result, Jenny H. has to either repeat ninth grade or find herself a new school. She decides to enter a different boarding school and reinvents her image as the popular "it" girl.

It is unknown if a spinoff would go to the CW or another network.

What do you think? Would you watch a Gossip Girl spin-off? Do you think Jenny Humphrey (Taylor Momsen) can carry her own show?

While their characters live the high life in the Hamptons and beyond, the Gossip Girl cast is spending their between-season hiatus on film sets.

It was announced last week that our own Chace Crawford, will be appearing on screens this Halloween in a suspense thriller called The Haunting of Molly Hartley. But that's not all.

Blake Lively (pictured) is the busiest of the Gossip Girl cast as she is tackling three major movie roles: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, New York, I Love You, and The Private Lives of Pippa Lee.

Meanwhile, young Taylor Momsen will be appearing in Doubting Thomas, in which a 12-year-old has to save the president's daughter.

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Josh Schwartz took TV by storm this season with his sudsy primetime drama about Manhattan's upper crust, Gossip Girl.

Often compared to Schwartz's other teen soap, The OC, Gossip Girl outshines its predecessor in so many ways. Or at least two:

1. The Gossip Girl cast.
2. The premise of Gossip Girl uniquely lends itself to the abundance of real world celebrity gossip blogs.

The Gossip Girl of the show, voiced wonderfully by Kristen Bell, is a secret blogger who dishes about the goings-on of Upper East Side teens.

Gossip Girl has become something of a fictional Page Six.

In fact, in "All About My Brother," Isabel says, "I'm so glad Gossip Girl got her balls back. She was so turning into the new Page Six."

Therefore, when it comes to Gossip Girl, real celebrity gossip is that much more addicting and impossible to tune out.

We already know Penn Badgley and Blake Lively are a couple in real life - and that's just the beginning of the gossip.

Are Blake and Leighton Meester frenemies in real life? Is Chace Crawford gay, or isn't he? Who is he dating? The lists of questions and photos on celeb gossip sites is not short by any means.

Then again, does it really matter if the gossip is true or not?

The fact that there are rumors and gossip surrounding the Gossip Girl cast affords us the same voyeuristic pleasure we take when watching the episodes - and not just Mondays at 8.