Login / RegisterSex and the City 2's reunion of gal pals makes it a party
NEW YORK CITY—If you assumed that Sex and the City was about a group of elitist New York insiders, you would be mistaken, according to Michael Patrick King, an executive producer of the long-running TV series and the director of the two subsequent films. During a press conference held, fittingly, in the shoe department at Bergdorf Goodman, King says the four Manhattan-based friends were pariahs when the show first aired back in 1998. He says Carrie Bradshaw and her gal pals took on society's prejudices, eventually changing the way Americans felt about single women.
“At that time, it was the single girl as leper,” he says. “They were the voice of the outsiders, which included anyone who wasn't married in their 30s, which was when society told them they should be married. So I think that anyone who has been an outsider, be it due to their sexual orientation or their gender or race, can relate to these four girls who have moved through the world trying to claim themselves. The reason we have managed to go from a TV series to a movie is that we have been daring and allowed these people to change. I think the reason why gay men and women like this movie is because of the story of looking for love—with someone else, of course, but inevitably looking for a love of yourself in this society we have. I think the villain in our show and the movies is society, because it tells you that you have to be a certain way.”
Sex and the City 2, which opens Wednesday (May 26), takes place two years after the original film. Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) has been married to Big (Chris Noth) for two years and is finding marriage a little boring. When Samantha (Kim Cattrall) invites her and their friends Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) to Abu Dhabi for a week, she jumps at the opportunity to have a break. King says that while the sequel wouldn't have been made if the first film had lost money, he was as impressed by the audience's reaction as he was by the movie's success at the box office.
Watch the trailer for Sex and the City 2.
“My inspiration for the first movie was the girls reuniting, and my inspiration for this movie was the audience for the first movie. When I would see them getting dressed up for the film and having cocktails and taking pictures of themselves in the theatre seats, I thought, ”˜This is an interactive party. This is no longer a movie.' When we were lucky enough to do a sequel, I wanted it to be a continuation of the party for the audience. I also knew that I wanted it to be completely different from the first movie. I thought that we should do what movies did during the Depression and take people on a big vacation they couldn't afford themselves. Now the audience can go out with their girlfriends for a night out with these four ladies.”
