Katie Holmes, James Van Der Beek, and More Discuss the Prospects of a 'Dawson's Creek' Reboot

We don’t wanna wait! Dawson’s Creek captured the hearts of its viewers when it originally aired on The WB — and many fans want the cast to reunite for a potential reboot.

The show — which ran for six seasons from 1998 to 2003 — starred James Van Der Beek as the titular character, Dawson Leery. The teen drama followed the lives of Dawson and his friends, played by Katie Holmes, Joshua Jackson and Michelle Williams, as they grew up in the small town of Capeside.

The series was created by Kevin Williamson, who based the premise on his own childhood experiences in a small town. In August 2019, the TV writer admitted that there were talks about potentially revisiting the iconic show, but nothing was set in stone.

“We keep talking about it, but no, as of now, it’s not in the pipeline,” Williamson said during the TV Critics’ Association summer press tour. “We kind of ended it. The last episode was five years in the future. We put a nice button to it. Jen [Williams’ character] died. What are we going to do? We’ve talked about it, but until we can find a reason to do it … We come up with ideas, but no, as of now, no.”

While the Scream writer reminded everyone what happened in the series finale, Williams isn’t letting her character’s death stop her from possibly appearing in a spinoff. During an April 2016 appearance on Today, the Oscar nominee offered some suggestions on how she could potentially reprise her role.

“I would have to come back as a ghost — or put a lot of filters on the camera, and I’ll do flashback scenes,” she said at the time. “I think it’s a fun thing to sort of imagine. I like imagining it.”

Despite Williams’ excitement about maybe getting the gang back together, some of her former castmates aren’t on the same page. Holmes, for her part, weighed in on why she thought a revival wouldn’t work in this day and age.

“It was before the internet really took over,” the First Daughter star explained to Screen Rant in July 2022. “It was before iPhones, it was before this kind of new form of communication, and it had this certain feeling that was of the ’90s. I don’t think that in today’s world, you could achieve that same kind of feeling.”

One year later, Holmes confirmed to Variety that there had been “discussions” about a reboot but echoed her feelings about how it may not work well in the modern era.

“There have been many discussions over the years. We all loved the experience,” she said in May 2023. “There’s a protection that comes along with the discussion. The show was a time capsule. To put it into today’s world might tarnish it a little bit. It was right before everyone had a phone and social media and all of that, so there was an innocence that was there between the characters that was one of the things I think people liked about the show. To put it into the setting of today’s world, I’m not sure.”