With TV remakes like Westworld and prequels like Wet Hot American Summer and revivals like Twin Peaks, it may start to seem (as in the very premise of Westworld), that we’re living in a cultural theme park commemorating and replicating the past. Now, you’ll have another chance to experience the simultaneity of nostalgia/joy and skepticism with a new, similar announcement: Will Smith is aiming to reboot The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
His company, Overbrook Entertainment is, as TVLine reports, in the “very early stages” of conceiving a “present-day” Fresh Prince, seemingly with fresh faces whilst preserving the “spirit” of the beloved series. (Smith reportedly is “solely producing” the project). It’ll seemingly be a new take on the culture clash premise of the original, which ran for six seasons, from 1990 to 1996.
Smith would be joined by other Overbrook partners James Lassiter, Caleeb Pinkett and Jada Pinkett-Smith as executive producers of the project. Though it seems likely from the suggestion that Smith is serving only as a producer that it’ll follow a new set of characters, TVLine says it “remains unclear” if it could actually be a “revival/continuation à la Netflix’s Fuller House.”