How 'Bel-Air' changes 9 beloved 'Fresh Prince' characters from the original
The following story contains spoilers from the first three episodes of "Bel-Air."
Change can be hard. And scary. Especially for the writers of the new series "Bel-Air."
"It's not an unsubstantiated fear — if we don't get it right, the audience will hit us at every turn and we're going to get read on Twitter and everywhere else," says co-showrunner Rasheed Newson. "Typically, when it comes to reboots, you don't want to offend the sacred text, you don't want to do anything to these characters that's gonna make anybody mad. But then the characters end up not doing anything at all. So we went in some new directions."
The Peacock series, expanding the vision first revealed in Morgan Cooper's viral 2019 short film, drastically retells "Fresh Prince" in a contemporary setting, and without a live audience to cut the tension of the high-stakes setups once played for laughs. Here are the key differences between the characters of the '90s sitcom and its dramatic reimagining.
Will
The sitcom's titular character, though loosely based on the experiences of music executive Benny Medina, leaned heavily on the real-life personality of Will Smith: a charismatic, streetwise teen with an aptitude for music, talent on the basketball court and skills with the ladies. Its theme song explained why Will moved across the country, while showing him being spun around in the air by a local bully.
"Bel-Air" ups the stakes to justify the drastic relocation: One night, after finishing
