Sex and the City creator Candace Bushnell says she’ll receive no money from high-profile Netflix deal

Candace Bushnell, the writer whose work was adapted into the hit HBO comedy-drama series Sex and the City, has said that she will receive no money from the recent Netflix deal.

Last month, it was announced that Sex and the City would begin streaming on Netflix in the US from April 2024, having previously only been available on Max, Warner Bros Discovery’s proprietary streaming service.

While the financial details of the deal have not been disclosed, it is assumed to be lucrative, coming amid a broader licencing deal between Max and Netflix.

Bushnell, who wrote the original newspaper column and 1996 anthology book upon which the series was based, opened up about the deal to The Sunday Times, revealing that it would not “financially affect” her.

“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,” she told the outlet. “The percentage of women in the 1 per cent who made their own money is about 3.5 per cent, and that’s shocking.”

“The way men do business is a Ponzi scheme.”

Bushnell was originally paid $100,000 for the rights to adapt her work. Sex and the City starred Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, and Cynthia Nixon as four friends living in New York City.

The series ran for six seasons on HBO, and was later revived for two theatrically released films, and an ongoing sequel series, titled ...And Just Like That.

The Independent has contacted Netflix for comment.

Bushnell is currently performing a stage show exploring her own life and work: True Tales of Sex, Success and Sex and the City.

...And Just Like That aired its second season last year. In a two-star review of the season, The Independent critic Nick Hilton wrote: “There’s always a pleasure in the reunion of beloved TV characters, and there’s no denying the chemistry between Parker, Nixon and Davis (though Nixon’s coastal move upsets that trio). But the show still seems uncertain about its place in the world. Is it a throwback? A reimagining? An update? Or an entirely new thing?

“Caught between all these potential aspirations, And Just Like That… has ended up a toothless imitation of its ancestor. Where Sex and the City gave a voice in prestige TV to a generation of women, And Just Like That… is giving little more than pay cheques to its well-coiffed stars.”

In the UK, the series is available to stream on Sky and NOW.