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Fan-made trailer reinvents 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' as a dramatic film

Director says he grew up watching the sitcom and thought there was more to the story

Clémence Michallon
New York
Thursday 14 March 2019 17:08 EDT
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A fan-made trailer reinvents 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' as a dramatic movie.
A fan-made trailer reinvents 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' as a dramatic movie. (YouTube / Sun Squared Media)

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An impressive fan-made trailer imagines what The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air would look like if it crossed over from the world of sitcoms to that of dramatic films.

Cinematographer and director Morgan Cooper says he grew up in the nineties watching the show starring Will Smith and "always thought there was more to the story" – hence his decision to reinvent it in his own trailer.

The almost four-minute clip uses the same basic narrative elements as the sitcom, but adds a dramatic undertone absent from the beloved show.

In Cooper's version, just like in the TV series, a young man named Will gets sent to live with relatives in Bel-Air, Los Angeles, after getting into a confrontation in his native West Philadelphia.

The trailer, however, has Will arrested for carrying a gun – a narrative arc not featured on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Will can then be seen for the rest of the clip attempting to adjust to his new home.

Cooper said on social media that more than 100 people worked on the trailer, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes.

The trailer has been watched more than a million times on YouTube.

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The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air originally aired from 1990 to 1996 and retains a strong fan base to this day.

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