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Sex and the City Takes Entertainment Weekly
All Carrie Bradshaw can do is gasp. The sight before her is simply too good to be true: a gleaming, gold and white closet spacious enough to house every last thread of her beloved designer wardrobe, if not the entire contents of her single-gal apartment. And it's hers. All hers — an engagement gift from Mr. Big, who bought the resplendent Manhattan flat in which this temple of couture worship sits. Of course, it's really a lavish set nestled into New York's Silvercup Studios, the same place where Sarah Jessica Parker and Chris Noth shot Sex and the City for seven years.
Now, on this chilly December afternoon, three months into shooting the big-screen version of SATC, the pair is enjoying the ease and familiarity of longtime costars. (''Squeeze his nose!'' Parker jokes, as a makeup artist gives Noth a touch-up between takes.) But when writer-director Michael Patrick King calls ''Action!'' they fall back into character. Oohing and ahhing, Carrie sets down her shopping bags and saunters through the closet. ''Like it?'' Mr. Big asks. ''Like it?'' she replies. ''It's love at first sight.'' Then, as if handling a sacred relic, Carrie places — what else? — a brand-new pair of Manolo Blahniks on the closet's enormous shoe rack. Beaming, she turns back to Big: ''Now I believe this is all really happening.''
Funny, that's just what we were thinking. For years, the Sex and the City movie seemed about as likely a possibility as Carrie buying pleather shoes at Payless. When a planned feature adaptation of the hit HBO series fell apart in 2004, just after the show ended its six-season run, not even King, the show's exec producer, harbored hopes that it would ever rise from the dead: ''Oh, I thought it was over,'' he recalls. And as time ticked by following the series finale, the team was faced with the increasingly real chance that even if they could get a film together, audiences just might not be that into these ladies anymore.
Cut to four years later. After much meticulous planning, creative hustling, and good old-fashioned wing-and-a-prayer determination, Parker & Co.'s little labor of love is a reality. And it's generated enough frenzied interest from paparazzi, fans, advertisers, and gossip blogs to prove that the Sex and the City brand is still more potent than one of Samantha's Flirtinis. The movie has the potential to turn into that rarest of entities in Hollywood: a female-driven summer blockbuster. For Parker, that possibility makes the experience of reprising her iconic role all the more satisfying. ''It feels wonderful,'' she says, kicking off her leopard-print Christian Louboutin stilettos and settling into a plush white couch in her Silvercup dressing room. ''I can't believe we're here,'' says the 43-year-old actress, also a producer on the film, eyeing the finish line with exhilaration. Just don't assume she's giddy enough to let slip any details about the film's tightly guarded plot. In fact, no one involved in the film will divulge much of anything, coyly responding to a reporter's questions with mischievous smiles or cryptic descriptions like ''It's about what it means to have people last in your life.''
What we do know is that the film picks up four years after the series finale and spans a year in the life of Carrie and the girls, who have ''the same quirks and flaws, but have a little more grown-up elegance,'' according to King. In addition to planning her dream wedding to Big (a.k.a. John James Preston), Carrie has just published her third book (entitled A Single Life) and is ''extremely content,'' says Parker. ''She doesn't overthink things all the time.'' Samantha (Kim Cattrall) has moved to Los Angeles, where she's giving monogamy a whirl with her actor boyfriend Smith (Jason Lewis); Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is struggling with imperfect married life with Steve (David Eigenberg) in Brooklyn; and Charlotte's (Kristin Davis) domestic bliss with Harry (Evan Handler) and their adopted daughter Lily gets blissier when she discovers she's pregnant. Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson joins the quartet as Carrie's bright-eyed assistant, Louise. And you'd better believe they'll all be decked out in eye-popping fashion handpicked by the series' maverick costume designer Patricia Field. ''Isn't it ridiculous?'' Parker squeals, showing off a fresh-from-the-runway, rainbow-hued Alexander McQueen gown hanging in her dressing room. ''To be a paper doll at my age — it really is heaven on earth.''
But Parker swears there's more to the film than closets, orgasms, and cosmos. ''It can't be just about wanton lust — that's not the truth about these women anymore,'' she explains. ''The top of the movie is like a dollop of cream — delicious imagery and scant narrative. It just tells you what we've been doing, and then: boom. It's a recovery operation. The movie goes to a very dark place that we've never done before.'' Could that ''dark place'' be a death? A breakup? Carrie's decision to stop lightening her hair? Flashing a honey, please! smile, Parker says, ''Would I tell you?''
Parker was enjoying a quiet day at her family's Hamptons beach house in the spring of 2006 when she suddenly got the ''crazy notion'' that it was time to revisit the Sex movie. She knew that the syndicated episodes airing on TBS since 2004 averaged nearly 2 million viewers and had spawned a whole new generation of fans. So she floated the idea by her agent, and a few months later, when The Devil Wears Prada's $125 million gross proved there was an audience for quality, female-driven films, she started talking to HBO. She held off on contacting King, though. ''I knew that if we spoke to Michael, we'd better be ready to pursue this in a real way,'' the actress explains. ''He had gone to these efforts before, and I wanted to make sure it was worth his time.''
No one wanted to relive the disappointment of the first attempt at a feature, which fell apart in 2004 when Cattrall declined to commit. At the time, the trade newspapers reported that her reasons had to do with salary demands and script approval, which sent the tabloids into gossip overdrive, rehashing the same theories of catfighting that had plagued the series from the beginning. The costars vehemently deny those rumors. ''What kind of uncivilized people do they think we are?'' Parker fumes. For her part, Cattrall maintains that she based her decision on more than just a paycheck. ''My dad was diagnosed with dementia and I was going through a divorce,'' says the actress, 51. ''I really needed to take a break and be with my family.'' But in late 2006, when HBO's then CEO Chris Albrecht — one of the guiding forces of both the series and the film — called to say the project might rise from the ashes, she was ready to return to Samantha's hedonistic pleasure dome. Laughing, Cattrall says: ''That's how I am like Samantha — I just want to do it again. Insatiable!'' Perhaps not coincidentally, Nixon and Davis also responded to Albrecht's proposal like their respective alter egos might. ''When they said, 'We're going to do the movie,' I said, 'Yeeaah. I'll believe it when I see it,''' says Nixon with a laugh. Davis, on the other hand, never lost faith in the project — even if she was, as she says, ''down to a tiny shred of optimism.'' Still, ''I really believed it was going to happen because I play Charlotte, the hopeful one!''
When King finally got his call from Albrecht, he was shocked. ''I never thought it would come back,'' he says. Yet any initial reservations he might have had — a reaction Parker likens to that of ''somebody who is not sure about dating because they've been hurt or disappointed'' — soon faded when King thought about those healthy TBS ratings. To him, they proved that the show hadn't ''instantly become dated when it went off the air.'' And so, as he lay in bed that night, he sketched out the entire screenplay in his head. Save for a detail here and there, it was a completely different story from what he'd written in 2004. Not only was that one lighter in tone, it also envisioned the girls leading more separate lives. In the first version, ''my creative impulse was to deconstruct the nucleus of the girls, 'cause we were all so together for seven years,'' the writer-director recalls. That film would have kicked off with the wedding of Carrie's gay best friend Stanford to his main man, Marcus, and then followed Charlotte, accompanied by her lawyer Miranda, as she traveled to China to adopt a baby girl. ''It reminded me of one of those Bob Hope-Bing Crosby road movies,'' Parker says. ''It felt like a fling, like a Chevrolet driving into the sunset.''
Four years later, however, all King wanted was a reunion. He was also intent on introducing a new character, Carrie's assistant, Louise, fully aware that no matter how hot and fabulous the of-a-certain-age foursome remained, a younger presence never hurts. He wrote Louise as black because ''everywhere I went, African-American women would say, 'We love the show. But where are the sisters?''' As for the central plot, well, that was obvious. Says King, 53: ''The only story left to tell is the Carrie-Big resolve: Will it end with a wedding?'' While the trailer tells us that there is an elaborate ceremony planned, whether it leads to an actual exchange of vows is another story. ''Um...'' Parker begins, choosing her words carefully. ''I will just say that none of this is conventional.''
By early 2007, the Sex movie seemed to be on track. King turned in his script in March. Preproduction was set to begin in June. But then, in May, the project ground to a halt when Albrecht resigned from HBO and the network decided it was no longer in a position to finance the movie on its own. Suddenly, Parker recalls, ''we didn't have a studio.'' She and producer John Melfi, a vet from the series, shopped the project within the Time Warner family and found a home at HBO's sister company New Line. (EW is also part of Time Warner.) And in July 2007, with a budget of $60 million, the Sex and the City movie had its green light at long last.
Immediately, Parker and Field began calling in favors with designers to borrow garments that, to be current for the film's release, would not even hit runways for months to come. ''We had a piece from Yves Saint Laurent for, like, six hours,'' Parker says. ''They take it off me when we finish the scene and it goes back.'' Next, New Line started hunting down sponsors to help with the marketing budget. The studio was soon fielding offers from hundreds of potential partners. Parker herself courted Mercedes-Benz in order to realistically re-create New York Fashion Week, which the car company underwrites. ''We needed them for credibility and financial reasons,'' she says. ''I've learned [this is] the nature of making movies today.'' The series never accepted a penny for product placement, and neither did the film — but New Line did secure seven promotional partners who helped supplement the movie's ad campaign. Of course, some of their products — including Glacéau Vitaminwater and Swarovski — appear on screen. King, along with everyone else, claims it's all entirely organic to the story: ''There are no action figures. No Samantha in a Happy Meal.'' (That said, partner Skyy Vodka has its own promotional tie-in deal with the decidedly un-Sexy chain restaurant Houlihan's.)
When cameras finally started rolling in New York City in September, the cast and crew figured they'd have to deal with the occasional group of curious passersby but nothing the production's two security guards couldn't handle. Whoops. ''On my first day, we all had to walk down the street together, and there were hundreds of people on Park Avenue, watching us,'' says Nixon, 42. ''It was daunting.'' It also wreaked havoc on the schedule. ''It took two to three times as long to shoot,'' says Parker. ''It's flattering that anybody still cares about these characters. But it's like an amoeba — ever-growing and out of control.'' Things got particularly weird one day when, in between setups, the four female leads retreated to a hotel room, where they watched a news channel broadcast the scene they'd shot less than 30 minutes ago. Exclaims Parker: ''They had camera angles that we didn't even have!''
With no way to keep onlookers and paparazzi from leaking spoilers on the Internet, King dreamed up a defense strategy. The cast would simply start the rumor that certain published photos, like the one in which a very pregnant Charlotte reads Mr. Big the riot act, were nothing more than dream sequences. ''Almost every scene we shot,'' Parker explains, ''especially when there were a lot of extras around, I'd say, 'This is one crazy dream sequence!''' According to Davis, 43, ''we were like, 'Hmm, okay, we'll go with that.' But then after a while, you feel guilty.'' For the record, the heated encounter between Charlotte and Big was no reverie. And, contrary to what the trailer and recent chatter might have you believe, Carrie's true love does not die. ''Why would I kill Mr. Big?'' King says, shaking his head. ''I'd be chased down the street with sticks!''
On an overcast day in April, three months after wrapping production, King takes a seat in a Manhattan coffee shop, his hands wrapped around a steaming cup of black tea. At long last, the Sex and the City movie is nearly complete. Neither the recent writers' strike, nor the bombshell announcement in February that Warner Bros. would absorb New Line, could throw the tough little picture off course. King even convinced the corporate suits to approve a run time of ''two hours and 15 delicious minutes,'' which he knows is on the long side for a romantic comedy. ''At one point I said, 'Let's call it There Will Be Shoes.''' He needs all those minutes, he says, because the movie juggles story lines for four different women. And, jokes King, ''ladies take longer.''
Will those ladies get a happy ending at the box office? The Sex and the City series revolutionized television, proving that shows starring actresses over 30 can indeed appeal to the masses. (Desperate Housewives, you may now kiss Lady Bradshaw's ring.) The cineplex, on the other hand, has been slower to catch up. But based on the prerelease buzz — and the summer's glut of dude-friendly ? superhero flicks, from Iron Man to Batman — Sex is poised to be a profitable (and glamorous) stroke of counterprogramming. ''There's a lot at stake for me personally,'' says Parker. ''I want it to do well, but the bigger story for me here is that I want the people who hold the purse strings to believe that there are female audiences, that it's worth their money.'' If it's a hit, King isn't ruling out a sequel — but for now, he'd rather take it one cosmo at a time. ''I just hope people think, 'Ahhh, it's nice to see the girls again.'''
Message edited 5/15/2008 9:22:15 AM.
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