There's A Good Reason You Only Saw Two Sex And The City Movies
When Sex and the City ended in 2004, some of us thought we'd never survive without our weekly dose of Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha. Then came the thrilling news that a SATC movie was in the works. In 2008, fans were treated to an update on the lives of our favorite New York City ladies (via IMDb). Sadly, the film didn't earn great reviews, with Rotten Tomatoes only awarding it 49 percent on the Tomatometer (via New York Post).
In 2010, the beloved franchise had a chance to redeem itself with another sequel. Unfortunately, Sex and the City 2 was called "borderline racist" among other cringeworthy and unflattering terms like "an assault to good taste" (via The Guardian and New York Post). If you haven't seen the movie, the plotline basically takes the four ladies out of New York City, to Abu Dhabi — and let's just say the one-liners are worse than you're imagining. To put just how bad this film was received into perspective, Rotten Tomatoes gave Carrie and her friends a 16 percent on the Tomatometer this time. Ouch.
It might have been a stretch for the women to put out a third movie given the awful reception of the first two. But even if audiences forgave Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, and Kim Cattrall for disgraceful follow-ups to a series so beloved by so many, tension among the cast was simply too high for another film to happen.
Kim Cattrall has long been at odds with Sarah Jessica Parker
Even though it's hard to imagine a subsequent film post the SATC 2 disaster, Parker said in 2017 about such a project, "I'm disappointed. We had this beautiful, funny, heartbreaking, joyful, very relatable script" (via New York Post). But Cattrall, who plays Samantha, apparently had no interest in doing the movie, with a source saying that even the first film was a stretch for her: "Kim does not want to . . . do the film. She feels she has been treated horribly by Sarah Jessica Parker for six years."
Back in 2008 when the first SATC movie came out, Cattrall said about her relationship with her cast mates, "Are we the best of friends? No. We're professional actresses. We have our own separate lives" (via Elle). Okay, fair enough. But it turns out things were far worse than that comment would let on, with allegations of mean girls behavior making things unbearable on set for Cattrall. Add to that the rumor that the star wasn't being compensated as much as she'd like, and, well, a third movie was out of the question.
Consider that in 2021, the rift is so wide that a revival of the series called And Just Like That is in the works at HBO Max — and Cattrall is not a part of it.