Lena Dunham has confirmed that her acclaimed series «Girls» will return to HBO Max for a five-episode limited series, with production set to begin next summer. The announcement was made through a mock Zoom call featuring former cast members Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, Zosia Mamet and Andrew Rannells, all of whom are set to reprise their roles as Marnie, Jessa, Shoshanna and Elijah.
Dunham, who created and starred in the original series as Hannah Horvath, said in a statement that she had long resisted revisiting the show until the characters began to feel present again. «We always said we would only return to Girls if there was a specific story we were burning to tell,» she said. «I've missed these characters, but for a long time I couldn't quite picture them in the present day. Then, right around my 40th birthday, they started talking to me in the shower.»
The original «Girls» ran for five seasons between 2012 and 2017, following a group of young women navigating friendships, careers and relationships in New York City. The revival will shift the focus from the tumult of their twenties to the milestone of turning 40, a transition HBO programming executive vice president Amy Gravitt described as a natural next chapter. «To say the world has changed since we last saw Hannah, Marnie, Shoshanna, Jessa, and Elijah is a massive understatement, but we know fans – old and new – will be happy to see how they've grown,» Gravitt said.
Dunham added that returning to the show with the benefit of hindsight has given her a new perspective. «It's rare that you get the chance to return to something that changed your life with the gift of hindsight and a whole new level of gratitude and understanding,» she said, noting her affection for the cast and the show's enduring audience.
Fan reaction has been divided since the announcement. On Reddit, some longtime viewers questioned whether a revival could capture what made the original feel singular. «Not sure I like this. Girls was special because it took place during a very short span in a woman's life; her twenties,» one user wrote, pointing to other revivals as cautionary examples. Another added, «As a tired old millennial, I don't care to see their current tired old millennial lives. Let's keep it as it was.» One commenter summarized the skepticism more bluntly: «I want quality and not nostalgia bait.»
Others greeted the news with enthusiasm. «I'm literally nauseous with excitement,» one fan wrote, while another said, «God is coming back to write more chapters of The Bible.» A third defended the idea directly: «Everyone is asking, Who on earth wants a Girls revival? Me. I loved the original and want to watch the characters give vent to their fullest 40-year-old selves, however unlikable or grotesque.»
Notably absent from the announced returning cast is Adam Driver, who played Hannah's sometimes-love interest Adam Sackler. Driver has not been announced for the revival. In her 2026 memoir «Famesick», Dunham made a series of allegations about Driver's behavior on set, including claims that he threw a chair while they were practicing lines together and punched a hole in the wall of his trailer. Driver has ignored requests for comment about the allegations.
The revival arrives amid a broader television landscape crowded with reboots and continuations, a trend that has made audiences increasingly wary of projects that lean on familiarity rather than new storytelling. For «Girls», the challenge will be whether Dunham can translate the specific anxieties of a group of twenty-somethings into a story about midlife that feels equally urgent. The five-episode format suggests a contained narrative rather than an open-ended return, and production is scheduled to begin next summer.