It has just been announced that there will in fact be a new Sex and the City movie. There have been rumors flying about a sequel for a while now, but none of the actresses had officially confirmed or denied it. Now the writer, Michael Patrick King, has confirmed that he and all of the ladies have signed on for another movie.

SATC writer-director Michael Patrick King confirms the scoop! In an exclusive statement, King says, “I’m very excited to work with these amazing actresses again and would love to give everyone more information about the sequel…but I’m busy with my ‘Sex’ life.”

“Everything was finalized yesterday afternoon,” a source reports.

Until now, everyone had agreed to do a sequel, but there were no contracts signed with New Line, the studio behind the megahit.

As it is, King has yet to write a script, but shooting will reportedly begin this summer with a release date sometime in summer 2010.

Reps for the stars and the studio did not immediately comment.

In its first weekend alone, Sex and the City opened with almost $58 million in ticket sales, reportedly making it the biggest R-rated comedy opener ever. Budget to make the movie? A cool $65 million.

Quick recap in case you were one of the few who missed it: When we last left Carrie, she had married Mr. Big even after he left her at the altar. Samantha and her young beau (Jason Lewis) split, while Miranda and Steve (David Eigenberg) patched things up after he cheated on her. Charlotte and Harry (Evan Handler) not only adopted a baby girl, but Charlotte gave birth to a second daughter.

[from E Online]

For a month after the first Sex and the City movie came out, there were lines out the door at the movie theaters near my house, full of teenagers and twenty-somethings in cocktail dresses. Some of them were drunk from too many Cosmos. With the last movie having done so well, you can only assume that the studio was ready to do another as soon as the credits rolled – they just needed to wait a little until the hype from the first one died down. Now they can start building up the tension again with “unofficial” photos from on-set and “leaked” scripts. I’ll guarantee that in spite of, or perhaps because of, the recession, audiences are more than willing to spend $10 to watch wealthy New Yorkers running around in their new Jimmy Choos.