Sex in a new city: Carrie Bradshaw and her Manhattan pals go to Abu Dhabi in sequel

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Sex in a new city: Carrie & pals go to Abu Dhabi

LAS VEGAS — Sarah Jessica Parker and her Manhattan gal pals are taking their sexy ways to a new city.

“Sex and the City 2,” due in theaters May 27, sends Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon on a trip to the Middle East as they visit Abu Dhabi.

While the sequel allows Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw a chance to spend quality time with her chic posse, it also gave the actresses more opportunity to hang together than they’ve had before.

“This is probably the most time the characters have ever spent together,” Parker said in an interview at last week’s ShoWest convention for theater owners, where distributor Warner Bros. premiered a new “Sex and the City 2″ trailer.

“Simultaneously, it was the first time that the four actors left the country, lived together, worked together for almost eight weeks solid — and when I say lived together, I mean breakfast, lunch and dinner together every single night,” Parker continued. “We were removed from family and friends, and we’ve never had that kind of time together, because we always went home to friends and family and children and husbands and wives. It is the most fun and the hardest we’ve ever worked together.”

The foursome needed to work hard to top the first big-screen spinoff of the HBO series, which far exceeded industry expectations two years ago with a $56.8 million opening weekend. The movie went on to top $150 million at the box office.

“Sex and the City 2″ reunites Carrie and company with the key men in their lives, including Big (Chris Noth), whom Carrie married in the first movie.

The sequel has Cattrall’s Samantha Jones taking her friends along to Abu Dhabi, where her movie star ex has shot an action film. The trailer reveals that Carrie finds temptation in the desert when she runs into her own ex from the TV show, Aidan (John Corbett).

“We bump into each other halfway around the world?” Carrie muses. “That means something.”

The trailer also sets up crises for Carrie’s friends, Samantha struggling to stay youthful, Davis’ Charlotte York feeling overwhelmed by her children, Nixon’s Miranda Hobbes wishing for time away from work to be a stay-at-home mom.

While much of the film takes place in Manhattan, the Middle East action presents a culture clash as the four fashionistas maneuver through a land steeped in tradition regarding the behavior and appearance of women.

“How do you sort of live up to the idea of fashion being a component of this particular franchise and be in a culture that requires you to be covered, and how to be sexy or lack a sort of chaste quality?” Parker said.

Michael Patrick King, who wrote and directed both movies and was executive producer on the TV show, said the big question people asked before the first movie came out was whether or not Carrie and Big got married.

“So we move from marriage to the next logical place in people’s minds, is she having a baby?” said King, who acknowledges that “it’s one of the thoughts of the movie” but will not answer for sure. “For me, I always like to do something that’s individualistic and unique for Carrie Bradshaw, since she is one of a kind.”

Warner Bros. and HBO are divisions of Time Warner Inc.