Will Smith Tells A Familiar Story In Fresh Prince Reboot Trailer
Will Smith tells a story familiar and different at the same time in the trailer for the Fresh Prince reboot.
This article is more than 2 years old
Peacock has officially revealed the teaser trailer for the upcoming Fresh Prince reboot. Bel-Air is the reimagining of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which starred Will Smith and helped launch him into superstardom. The teaser trailer includes the original theme song being performed in a much more dramatic turn. The newly reimagined show will still follow Smith’s life and his journey from Philadelphia to Bel-Air, but in a much more drama-enthused plot.
The teaser has a lot to do with what has already been revealed about the show. Jabari Banks plays Will Smith but is seen in the trailer drowning. Maybe he isn’t exactly drowning, but he is definitely shown underwater, which matters greatly. The symbolism is striking, to say the least, as the show is likely to be heavily involved in the racial subject matter that wasn’t as thoroughly explored in the original show.
There isn’t much drama that can be explored within a 30-minute time limit for a sitcom, but that’s what Bel-Air will aim to do. Each episode will be an hour long and probe deeper into the life of the show’s lead character than what fans of the original are used to It’s not as though The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was devoid of drama. There are a few episodes in which deeper subject matter was the focal point. Carlton getting a gun, Will’s father showing up and leaving him again, and Will and Carlton being subject to racial profiling in the south are a few times in which the original show proved there could be drama in its storytelling.
Adding drama wasn’t always the best course of action, and the aforementioned episode in which Carlton gets a gun is the episode in which Will Smith knew that the show was on its way out, and what led to him canceling The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The iteration of Bel-Air will actually be leaning more heavily into those dramatic moments. The above trailer and its usage of Will being underwater will likely be a main thematic element throughout the first season.
Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith are both producing the new Bel-Air show under their Westbrook Studios production company and partnering with Universal Television. Bel-Air will be based on the hour-long film, by Morgan Cooper, which reimagined the entirety of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as a drama. Bel-Air already received a two-season order last September. T.J. Brady and Rasheed Newson will be executive producers and showrunners. Their credits include The Chi and The 100. Brady and Newson have said Bel-Air, “celebrates the strength and love of the Black family,” and that the new series has “stayed true to the original premise of the legacy series.”
Will Smith will also serve as an executive producer on the show and has given his full blessing for this new iteration of one of his most famous works. There is no telling if there will be some comedic relief present in the way of a new version of Carlon Banks, but either way, Bel-Air should be an exciting take on one of television’s most beloved sitcoms.
