Morgan Cooper is a name that you might not know right now, but you really should. Especially if you’re someone that hopes to one day make a name for yourself in the film and TV industry. Why do you need to know about Morgan Cooper? Well, because this is a person that went out and made a short film that reimagined “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” as a gritty drama, went viral, and caught the attention of Will Smith. Now, a little more than a year later, he’s a writer, director, and producer on a new “Bel-Air” remake series that is being actively bid on by some of the biggest streaming platforms around. All because Morgan Cooper decided to carve his own path.
According to THR, Cooper is teaming up with Will Smith to head up a new drama series based on the sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” from the ‘90s. As mentioned, the idea for the series came last year when Cooper released his “trailer” for a dramatic retelling of the sitcom about a Philadelphia kid who gets caught by police carrying a gun and is sent to Bel-Air to live with his rich Uncle and Aunt. The 4-minute video was seen by Will Smith on YouTube, who praised it and called Cooper’s short “brilliant.” They then met and are now collaborating on bringing the idea to fruition.
And now, the report claims that Netflix, HBO Max, and Peacock, among others, are all bidding on the rights to distribute and produce the new series alongside Cooper and Smith. And as we’ve seen with other reboots and remakes of popular media, there is already built-in fan interest about known IPs, so we could be seeing quite a big push for “Bel-Air” when it does finally land at a streamer. Basically, Morgan Cooper is about to launch his filmmaking career in a big, big way.
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Cooper is getting some help, however. Chris Collins, a writer for series such as “The Wire,” “Sons of Anarchy,” and “Crash,” is also joining the production to co-write the series and also serve as the showrunner.
“The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” which starred Smith in the lead, is currently available to stream on HBO Max.