In mid-January, Warner Bros. Discovery announced it had licensed “Sex and the City” to powerhouse streamer Netflix. That’s great news for both companies and anyone who receives royalties from the series, but it turns out that the latter doesn’t include author Candace Bushnell, who penned the book the show is based on. As she told The Sunday Times, “The way men do business is a Ponzi scheme.”
“All of these men who are in charge of things, they just keep moving these cards around to make money because every time they move the cards around somebody’s skimming,” Bushnell said.
The deal, which brings all six seasons of the show to Netflix, goes into effect in April and does not include the sequel series “And Just Like That.” Netflix has not announced how much the company paid to license the series.
Until 2023, HBO had stopped licensing its shows to streamers such as Netflix following the launch of Max (formerly HBO Max). But as they’ve shifted back into licensing, the company has enjoyed great success with the popularity of shows like “Band of Brothers,” “Insecure” and “Six Feet Under” on other platforms.
Ted Sarandos, the co-chief executive at Netflix, told the New York Times, “I am thrilled that the studios are more open to licensing again, and I am thrilled to tell them we are open for business.”
Bushnell’s focused on a one-woman show, as well as her personal life. As she told the Times, she’s on several dating apps, including Raya. Bushnell explained, “Everybody’s on it. It’s just like a little club. It’s like Soho House.”
The only men she says are truly off-limits are those who have photos with their moms in their profile, she added. “For me, that’s a no-no, because I could be your mother’s age. That’s a joke — but it’s actually true.”
Bushnell’s one-woman live show is titled “True Tales of Sex, Success, and Sex and the City.” Described as an onstage memoir, Bushnell “takes the audience on whirlwind tour of New York City, from Studio 54 to the Lipstick Jungle and beyond, sharing her remarkable stories of fashion, literature and sex while pouring cosmos in Manolos.”
