Will Smith works on the project as a producer
This 2020 seems to have lost its sense of humor. Will Smith wants to rescue the idea of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air but not to do the same as always but with another point of view. What if Will’s story had been addressed seriously and without canned laughs? What would have been the result? Time to see a dramatic prince of Bel-Air.
It is a project that Will Smith develops with his production company Westbrook Studios and Universal Television and that has the spotlight on the main content platforms. Who’s going to give more? In such a competitive content industry, the most important thing is to watch the budget that is obtained by episodes and above all a commitment for one or direct two seasons, especially when it is a property as well known to the public as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
The idea is that it gets in the United States today, that the episodes last an hour, and that it tells the story of Will, a young man grown up on the toughest streets of Philadelphia and who must integrate into the wealthy community of his uncles in California. It is time to address the conflicts that were presented in the sitcom of the nineties but without tiptoeing, without mitigating the blows with jokes.
Will Smith is actually developing an idea he saw on the internet when he saw a short film that imagined The Prince of Bel-Air as a serious and sassy series. The author of the short, Cooper, will be the one who writes and directs the series, although he will have the help of Chris Collins as co-author of the script. Collins does have a notable career in the television industry with work on David Simon’s The Man in the High Castle or The Wire.
Will Smith works with Cooper, the author of the short film that inspires this prince of drama
Will Smith has not yet reached an agreement with any content platform but, according to Deadline, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple, HBO Max and Peacock are interested at the moment. This latest platform launched last spring in the United States, owned by NBCUniversal, is already shooting sequels to Saved by the Bell and Punky Brewster.