MANILA, Philippines - After the close of the long-running HBO series Sex and the City, which continues to enjoy success on DVD and through national and international syndication, the demand for further adventures of Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda remained strong. In September of 2007, the first feature film version of Sex and the City went into production and was released worldwide in the early summer of 2008. The film was a global phenomenon, becoming a box-office smash and broadening Sex and the City’s worldwide fan base.
With that feature film debut, director Michael Patrick King knew the time was right for another film. “One of the reasons I came up with the Sex and the City 2 movie, the feeling of it, the tone of it, is because of the audience on the first one,” says King. “When the movie opened, I would see lines of women and they were all dressed up and going to a party. I thought to myself, ‘I want the sequel to be the continuation of the party. I want it to be the party.’”
“It’s very moving to be part of something that people have connected with and have strong feelings about,” says Sarah Jessica Parker. “The people that are warm and excited about Miranda’s life or Charlotte or Samantha or Carrie — it’s remarkable. Those who have committed their time and money and heart — that will never happen again in my life and I’m cognizant of it all the time.”
“I think the actresses embody something very special — a vibrancy that has to do with women’s lives,” says King. “I feel this enormous love towards these characters and this brand and a gratefulness that it’s happening for them, and these four characters still live on and we get to see them grow and change.
“To write the lives of Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha is a responsibility because each of those women is reflected in the viewing audience,” continues King. “I think with four women characters, you have a pretty wide range of types of choices, and you have to be very, very diligent about where you think the women might be, because I think, the success of it all, is that it has dealt with what people are dealing with in their own lives. Maybe not in the same glamorous way, but the emotions are the same. It’s about moving forward, and the fun thing about writing these characters, is that I’m not afraid to write the choices they make that move them in a different direction, because that’s what happens in life all of the time.”
Despite the resolution of all of the first feature’s major plot lines, there remains plenty to say about these four women. As producer John Melfi says, “For Sex and the City, it’s pretty exciting to go to the next chapter and see what happens after ‘happily ever after.’ Well, this is what happened. These four characters start off in a realistic situation, and then we throw them on the road together and make a road picture — a buddy picture.”
Sex and the City 2 is opening soon across the Philippines and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures in association with New Line Cinema.