Will Smith retells the story of the Fresh Prince in dramatic teaser for Bel-Air
The teaser provides a first look at newcomer Jabari Banks as Will
Aux News Bel-Air
This is a story all about how—well, you probably know the rest. But Will Smith is back to tell it to you again anyway in the first teaser for Peacock’s forthcoming drama Bel-Air. This time there’s no fun, sparse ‘90s beat featuring a tambourine and a goofy rap. Instead Smith narrates the clip in a serious and somber tone.
The one-minute teaser shows Jabari Banks, who takes on the updated role of Will, wading through water and eventually taking his place as the metaphorical Prince Of Bel-Air.
The series hails from co-showrunners T.J. Brady and Rasheed Newson, and is based on the melodramatic reimagining of the series explored by Morgan Cooper in his viral Youtube video posted in 2019. Cooper serves as co-writer and director on the series. Executive producers for the series include
Terence Carter, James Lassiter, Miguel Melendez, Malcolm Spellman, Quincy Jones, Benny Medina, Andy & Susan Borowitz, and Smith himself.
The full recurring cast features Adrian Holmes as Phillip Banks, Cassandra Freeman as Vivian Banks, Olly Sholotan as Carlton Banks, Coco Jones as Hilary Banks, Akira Akbar as Ashley Bank. Other star roles include: Jimmy Akingbola as Geoffrey, Jordan L. Jones as Jazz, and Simone Joy Jones as Lisa.
Smith personally handpicked Banks for the part, and in a joint statement Brady and Newson shared their support in his selection. “During the development of Bel-Air, the most daunting question was: Could we find a young actor who’d be able to step into the role of Will Smith?”
“Well, did we ever find him,” the statement continues. “His name is Jabari Banks and he won our hearts in the same way he won this role. Our creative team, including Will Smith, recognized that Jabari embodied the talent, charisma, and sheer swagger necessary to make this iconic role his own.”
So, maybe don’t abandon all hope yet. The series is set to be around for at least two seasons as Peacock already gave them the go-ahead.
Bel-Air is set to debut sometime in 2022.
25 Comments
In the future, all true 90’s Kidz will be rebooted for 2 seasons on Peacock.
So is this the narration equivalent of those like.. slowed down sad piano renditions of pop songs we hear in every trailer?
Oh, yeah, this is happening, for some reason.
I guess.
The original viral video looked ten times better than this; this looks like a failed spoof.
‘Carlton, it’s time to do the dance!’‘Dance? There is no dance, Will. They’ll kill me for what I’ve done.’
This feels like a 30 Rock parody of a TV show.
What are we doing here, folks?
Remember back in the late 80s when cable became ubiquitous, and everyone created their own channels to fill all the bandwidth and make money? Well, we’re at that point again with streaming services.
Someone accidentally hit a switch on the nostalgia machine and it got flipped from “remake everything” mode to “remake everything but with a hidden dark side”
And don’t forget to add a super slowed down version of a song to the trailer. Extra points for minimal instrumentation.
so basically this happened I guess
You know what I always hated about The Fresh Prince of Bel Air? The comedy. Let’s just get rid of that and it ought to be gold.
I’m positive I’ve seen worse reboot ideas but for the life of me I’m struggling to remember some right now.
I hope that the show simply has all new stories. All new scripts. No “dramatic remixes” of previous episodes. That’s going to get old, really quickly. Janet Hubert should be hired to play a schoolteacher at Bel Air Academy.
My daughter is watching the original series, so I’ve watched quite a few episodes over the last month or two. Some of the more serious topics still hold up pretty well even if they’re sometimes played for jokes. But it won’t be hard to add new stories, because 60+% of the show revolved around sex (once college rolls around, it’s more like 80+) and out-of-date joke references.
For a country that fought not to have a monarch anymore, you sure do have a lot of people wanting to be a monarch.
Anyone remember back when Mark Harmon was the Prince of Bel-Air?
Would rather watch a show based on this:
https://brodorokihousuke.tumblr.com/post/157794499466/and-i-cannot-believe-this-game
Every one wound rather watch an acd attorney show
No matter how good he is, nothing is gonna top this…
“Our creative team, including Will Smith, recognized that Jabari embodied the talent, charisma, and sheer swagger necessary to make this iconic role his own.”Other generations have their Lears or Lady MacBeths, we have this. Everything’s hunky dory in the culture!
I mean, it’s OK to remake the same thing thousands of times for hundreds of years, but reimagining a successful tv show from a few decades ago is somehow an indictment of modern culture?
In this version, the iconic Carlton dance will be reimagined as a seizure he goes into during dissociative episodes.
Karyn Parsons’s performance as Hilary is one of THE greatest comedy performances ever x