Now this is a story all about how independent filmmaker Morgan Cooper’s life got flipped turned upside down. And I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there, I’ll tell you how his 2019 viral video reimagining Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as a gritty drama got noticed by Will Smith and is being developed into a new series. The Hollywood Reporter reports that the dramatic reboot of the sitcom is being called just Bel-Air and “has been in the works for more than a year after the four-minute clip went viral when it was posted in March 2019 and caught Smith’s attention.” The gritty reboot is currently being shopped to streamers, who never seem to turn down a good reboot, and it will be a co-production between Universal TV and Smith’s own Westbrook Studios. Cooper will be a director, co-writer, and co-EP on the series. The reimagining sounds like a departure, but real fans know: Fresh Prince was already a heartbreaking drama.
