Talk about the strength of social media. A viral YouTube trailer is becoming a hot TV series. Based on Morgan Cooper’s YouTube trailer, Will Smith is planning to adapt the former’s dramatic reimagining of the actor’s beloved NBC comedy The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
Bel-Air is the dramatic take on popular 90s comedy that catapulted Smith to stardom. The series spanned for six season and showed Smith as the street-smart kid who moved from West Philly to Los Angeles. As per reports, the new reimagined version will show inherent conflicts, emotions, biases and prejudices that a Black man faces in America today with a pinch of humour and swagger to boot.
As per an online portal, the new Bel-Air has been in the works for more than a year after the video went viral in March 2019. Cooper, who created and directed the trailer as a drama will co-write the script, direct and be credited as a co-executive producer. The drama series is a co-production between Smith’s Westbrook Studios and original producers Universal TV. The portal reported that Peacock, HBO Max and Netflix are bidding to stream the series.
Original series producers Quincy Jones and Benny Medina, as well as creators Andy and Susan Borowitz, are all set to return as exec producers. Chris Collins will serve as showrunner, exec producer and is set to co-write the script alongside Cooper. The original series featured Smith, James Avery, Alfonso Ribeiro, Karyn Parsons, Tatyana M. Ali, Joseph Marcell and Janet Hubert-Whitten and Daphne Maxwell Reid. It ran from 1990-1996 on NBC.
(Source: Hollywood Reporter)
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