That dramatic Fresh Prince viral teaser actually led to a dramatic Fresh Prince reboot
Aux Features TV
Last March, a fan-made trailer for a dramatic reboot of The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air went viral shortly after landing on YouTube. Created and directed by Morgan Cooper, the trailer for Bel-Air reimagines the classic sitcom as a drama about a young man from West Philadelphia who gets arrested after a fight, so his mom sends him off to live with his Auntie and Uncle in the upscale California neighborhood. It didn’t take long for the video to catch the attention of original Fresh Prince Will Smith, who met with Cooper and began developing the idea as a potential reboot, per The Hollywood Reporter. That reboot is now becoming a reality, as Smith is teaming up with Fresh Prince producers Quincy Jones, Benny Medina, and creators Susan and Andy Borowitz to executive produce the new Bel-Air alongside Cooper—who will also serve as director and writer for the series.
The dramatic reboot is currently being shopped to various networks, with HBO Max, Netflix, and Peacock all making bids for the series. It seems that HBO Max might have a bit of an edge, however, given that the streaming platform is the current home of the classic sitcom, which ran from 1990 to 1996 on NBC. You can check out the original trailer for Cooper’s Bel-Air below:
82 Comments
Max is the home in the US but internationally it is Netflix so I would give Netflix the edge because of the bigger market.
Ok so that’s everything from the 90s rebooted. We’re done now.
We’re not done until Gargoyles is rebooted.[cocks pistol]Sit. Down.
i think you might wanna leave at least one bullet for yourself in case you get your reboot.
I’ll be happy just as long as any reboot/revival doesn’t recognize the third ABC season as canon.[finger on monkey paw closes]Oh dear…
Still waiting on the Cop Rock revival.
Excerpt, Cop Rock (2021):
♩ ♬ “I can’t breathe!” [”He can’t breathe!”]
“I can’t breathe!” [”He can’t breathe!”]
“Oh, Lord help me, I can’t breathe!” [”He can’t breathe! He can’t breathe! He cannot breathe!”] ♪ ♫
Home Improvement hasn’t had any new episodes in a while.
They should do a gritty Home Improvement reboot where the conservative father slowly changes his personal views in recognition of how the world is changing. Would love to see Tim Allen get pissed off by that.
Im pretty sure the reboot was called Last Man Standing
Home Improvement hasn’t had any new episodes in a while.
And it shouldn’t.
Its just been renamed to “Last Man Standing”.
Last Man Standing TOTALLY counts.
Uh, it’s called Last Man Standing.
But has everything from the 90s had a gritty reboot? We may still have some work here.
No, I’m still waiting on a gritty Family Matters reboot. But for reals I want a Family Matters reboot.
I’d seriously love a reboot/revival of Family Matters, that harkens back to the roots of the first season, and pretends Urkel never existed.
Ah, perfect! A world in which he did not, in fact, do that.
That or a grimly gritty one in which he is holding a bloody knife and uttering, between sobs “did…I…do…that?”
Coming soon: Family Lives Matter, the gritty reboot. Carl Winslow is retired from the force, and now Eddie is following in his footsteps as a police officer, but is having increasingly conflicted feelings about what it means to be a black cop in America, and is struggling to find a way to reconcile his desire to enforce justice with his righteous anger at the corruption and racially-targeted brutality that happens within the police system.Also, Urkel is a mad scientist now or some shit.
In the later seasons, he literally was a mad scientist haha. I like to pretend those seasons don’t exit because of that odd Stephan plotline.
You must have missed that Key & Peele sketch:
Peele’s Reg VelJohnson impression is flawless.
Shit. This is it.
Until we have a live action/CGI hybrid Samurai Pizza Cats reboot, assholes left intact, I’m not going to be satisfied that we’ve finished dragging the rotting corpse of the 90s forward through time.
Still waiting for Quantum Leap (and for that Northern Exposure revival that was reported and then disappeared). Maybe then we’ll be done.
Has Darkwing Duck been rebooted yet?
If not, we’re just getting started, motherfucker.
Pssht, by 2025, we’re going to look back on these as the glory days, when at least the things being rebooted were popular and had a narrative thread. Once the pogs movie hits, or a gritty reboot of America’s Funniest Home Videos, then we’ll have reached saturation.
> gritty reboot of America’s Funniest Home VideosI’d say there’s quite a few things that already continued the spirit of AFHV: YouTube “fails” compilations (and that “Tosh” show on Comedy Central, which is basically those compilations with a host), “Jackass”, etc.
Ahem.
Russians did it.
While The Hat Squad remains buried under the sands of time?
Gender swapped, gritty Simon & Simon or GTFO
Dinosaurs reboot, please.
How about a reboot of that old cartoon show from the 90s, ‘The Simpsons’? I mean, that ended after eight seasons, which is a pretty good run, but I think we could revisit it.
It barely made sense in the comedy but in a drama the idea that a poor kid from Philly is getting punished by having to move in with his rich uncles family is just silly.
He wasn’t being punished it was for Will’s own good.
Yeah but the first few seasons he often treated it like it was a burden and a punishment
Well sure he’d think it was punishment, but that nice man dressed up as his mother was looking out for her tender, talented young son.
Because he felt like he was a sellout.
lol bullshit there was not such nuance. he was a punk.
Maybe its because I was a military brat, but I totally got that part. EVERY time I had to move, all I would do is miss the last place I lived. Even if the new place was, in every measurable respect, better, I’d always feel a little angry and sad at having to leave it behind for some dumb new place that I didn’t want to go to, and that resentment would stick around until I moved again, and then itd be THAT place that I missed (you’d think eventually I recognize this pattern and just go with it at some point, my parents at least were pretty patient in watching me never learn this lesson, and probably at realizing their son wasn’t that smart).
He was a male teenager with the usual identity issues about being real, selling out, masculinity, on top of whatever troubles he was experiencing back in Philly, on top of having his whole life uprooted and being sent away by his mother. I think maybe only a really well adjusted kid wouldn’t act out about all that, which is the opposite of the premise to begin with.
In the early seasons, the intimidating duo of Uncle Phil and original Aunt Viv was a big part of Will’s culture shock. Uncle Phil was tough but original Aunt Viv was tougher.
I’d be more afraid of Uncle Phil, the guy sounds like Shredder!!
I really think there should have been more episodes that dealt with Will’s discomfort over his uncle’s weird obsession with turtles.
Oh, you got to go!
“This actually worked out great for everyone” is kind of the underlying theme of the series.
Yeah, why not just have him move there cause his Mom died, forcing him to have to live with his only remaining family.
I will only watch this if they cast Laurence Fishburne as Uncle Phil.
To make us all feel even older, Tatyana Ali will be cast as Aunt Viv…
Aunt Viv will be replaced every episode, like a guest star slot.
I’d rather see A.U.N.T. V.I.V., the AI assistant Carlton creates.
Automated Unit of Neural Technology, Variable and Independently Viable.
I was hoping that they’d have had a different actress playing her by the end of the trailer.
Wendell Pierce. May be busy with Jack Ryan tho.
Malcolm-Jamal Warner
This is the correct answer.
Andre Royo as the new Geoffrey
Tekashi as Jazz
Nah, Colton Dunn from Superstore is the man for the job.
Jaden Smith as Hilary
So the premise got flip-turned upside down?
I thought the team behind this had a good idea, even when other people said they were just a couple of guys, up to no good.
They made one little film and Smith got scared, “We gotta snap up the rights to that right there!”
hollywood is incapable of thinking of anything original. writers are just plagiarists now, just like journalists are really just propagandists now. pathetic really. fire the whole lot of them and start over.
honestly the idea is whatever, but it’s nice to see a ‘kid independently makes viral video, turns into real job’ story*
*that being said i’m cynical enough to buy that this kid was probably the son of a hedge fund manager and, like, demi moore.
The “kid” was a working professional cinematographer, but he did do the trailer independently as a personal project, so I’m happy for him.
I want to hate on this, but that fan trailer was one of my favorite things I watched all last year. I’m pretty sure it won’t be long before it goes Riverdale-dramatic, though.
I had literally no idea this thing even happened but after watching that trailer I was f’ing stunned. I will watch the ever loving shit out of this.
The director is pretty awesome. He even had a film with Denzel Whitaker:
– I can’t believe you didn’t tell me Uncle Phil
– I just walked into the room
– You could have called me
– What?
– You could have texted me
– I was stuck in traffic…
– What’s next? Stuck with me? I can’t be here anymore!
– What are you on about?
– I’m just your nephew right? I don’t want to see you anymore!!!!!
– I…just said…:’Hi, I’m home’
No… just no
I enjoyed that trailer for what it was, but ultimately taking a comedy and sucking the funny out of it to milk melodrama and pity seems like an easy, not super interesting route.If they were asking me, which I’m assuming they were JUST about to do, they should take it meta. The name scheme is right there (Uncle…WILL), and the original show already played up on Will Smith’s actual life. Some down on his luck kid in Philly is teetering on the brink of a life of crime, his overworked underpaid single mom doesn’t know what else to do, and through a desperate search of connections and family relatives, finally has someone reach out to her. Her brother from another mother, movie star Will Smith! How will famous successful Will Smith react to seeing someone from his home town, someone who reminds him of life before fame, of his youth and roots in his very home? How will this young ruffian adjust to the glitz and glamour of his Uncle’s impossibly rich life? And most importantly, how will this virile young man respond to his undeniable attraction to mega-MILF Jada Smith? Love entanglement ensues! Can’t wait to find what happens next? Check out my slash fiction! Link in bio.
The premise is a basic fish out of water class conflict setup. It’s not super original, but it’s perennial for a reason, and a lot of good work has been done in the subgenre, both comedy and drama. The fact that it’s a reboot is disheartening, and is probably more distracting than creatively helpful, but such is the nature of 2020.
Woo haha haha ?
Clearly this is the route Fuller House should have taken
Gotta say…I think the best way to go with this would be something in the vein of The OC
oh boy, drama.there goes the male demo.
Um . . . I . . .huh. Huh.It’s actually a little scary how much Ashley, Carlton and Hilary nail Ashley, Carlton and Hilary’s inflections. Like if I weren’t watching it and just listening? They sounded basically the same.This is so dumb and yet I’m definitely going to watch it. But if Jazzy Jeff doesn’t get thrown out of the house at least once, it’s not Fresh Prince.
Wow, just realized The OC was a white Fresh Prince
The Fresh Appropriation of Bel-Air.