Black life in modern America: The Prince of Beverly Hills will be restarted in the USA

Universal Television is partnering with Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith's Westbrook Studios to re-launch the hit 1990s sitcom The Prince of Beverly Hills. However, a new project called Bel Air will be a multi-part drama.

According to Variety, the film will be based on a video by Morgan Cooper. In it, the director reimagined the show in a dramatic way, suggesting that this is what the show might look like if it was filmed these days. The video was published on YouTube in March 2019 and has garnered 5.6 million views over the past time.

The video, which was almost four minutes long, received many positive reviews. He was also highly appreciated by Will Smith, who called this interpretation of the project "a brilliant idea", emphasizes Deadline.

The Bel Air series is also expected to tell the story of a young boy named Will's uneasy journey from the streets of West Philadelphia to mansions in the Bel Air area of ​​western Los Angeles. However, the creators of the drama show plan to focus in more detail on the inner conflicts and emotions of the hero and show how black people live in modern America.  

Morgan Cooper will direct and co-executive produce Bel Air. He will also write the script for the show in collaboration with Chris Collins, who worked on the TV series "The Man in the High Castle" and "Sons of Anarchy." Collins will also be the showrunner for the project. In addition, Will Smith, Morgan Cooper, Quincy Jones, Benny Medina, Miguel Melendez, Terence Carter, and the original creators Andy and Stuzen Borowitz will be producing the new series.

The date of the premiere and the site on which the series will be available are not yet known. According to media reports, producers are currently presenting the project to a number of streaming services, including Netflix, Peacock, HBO Max, Amazon and Apple TV +. Many platforms have already shown interest in the new show.

The Prince of Beverly Hills series aired on NBC from 1990 to 1996. The project has six seasons and 150 episodes. Will Smith played the main role in the film. It was "The Prince" that brought him wide fame and made him a star of the first magnitude.

Also involved in the tape are actors James Avery, Daphne Reid, Kerin Parsons, Alfonso Ribeiro, Tatiana Ali and others.

In the center of the plot of the series is a young guy, Will, who lives in West Philadelphia. While playing street basketball, he hits the local gang with the ball. A conflict arises between the characters, which frightens Will's mother. The woman decides to send her son to his uncle and aunt, who live in Bel Air, a prestigious area of ​​Los Angeles. So a guy from a simple family finds himself in high society, where he finds himself in many comical situations.

Previously, Will Smith, as executive producer, took part in the relaunch of another project created several decades ago. In 2018, the first season of the Cobra Kai series was released, based on the 1984 film The Karate Kid, starring Ralph Macchio. The same story is known from the 2010 remake of "The Karate Kid" with Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith.

The plot of "Cobra Kai" takes place 30 years after the events described in the original tape. The series was enthusiastically received by the audience and extended for two seasons. All episodes of the project are currently available on the streaming service Netflix.

Also a few years ago, Will Smith returned to the Bad Boys franchise. The first two films in the series starring the actor were released in 1995 and 2003. The tapes showed weak results at the box office, grossing $ 141.4 million and $ 273.3 million, respectively. Critics' reaction to the films was also mostly negative: the rating of the first part on the Rotten Tomatoes website is 43%, the second - only 23% (however, viewers highly rated both films, awarding them 78% each).

At the beginning of 2020, the premiere of the third part, Bad Boys Forever, took place, in which Will Smith not only played the main role along with his permanent partner Martin Lawrence, but also acted as an executive producer. This tape turned out to be the most successful among the films of the franchise: its gross worldwide amounted to $ 419 million, and the critics' rating was 77%.