NEW YORK - Will "Sex in the City" have a "Death in the City?" It's been a persistent rumour in cyberspace as the buzz kicks into overdrive for the film opening later this month.

If you want the rumour to remain in play, stop reading now.

But director Michael Patrick King is ready to free us from some of our worst fears. Namely, that Mr. Big, Carrie Bradshaw's longtime, on-and-off love played by Chris Noth, will somehow kick the bucket.

"Kill Mr. Big? I would have been chased around the planet by women with torches," said King, who also wrote the film and produced it along with its star, Sarah Jessica Parker.

Actually, the idea of a Mr. Big death was pitched to King early on, the director said in an interview. And it's true, he was aiming for some edge and pathos and melodrama in his script.

Just not THAT much edge, pathos or melodrama.

"I did want an emotional roller-coaster," King said. "But my ultimate target was to make our 'girlfriends' - in other words, our audience - happy. And I don't think Mr. Big dying would make them happy."

The death rumour has led to some naughty speculation. One of the naughtiest: New York Magazine suggested that Charlotte, the pretty and perky Park Avenue socialite, could be killed in a freak tennis accident.

So does anybody die? No plot spoilers here. But King, whose movie opens in late May, offered this answer.

"It's a summer movie," he said. "Why would I want to kill anyone?"