Meet the Kansas Citian behind ‘Bel-Air,’ the new dramatic reboot of ‘Fresh Prince’

Morgan Cooper knew he had hit on something powerful.

The Kansas City filmmaker reimagined Will Smith’s ’90s sitcom, “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” in the style of a gritty, modern premium cable drama. Three years ago, he gathered cast and crew in Kansas City and Los Angeles to make a 3 1/2-minute DIY short, a trailer for a reboot that existed only in his mind — at the time.

That trailer now has more than 7 million views. And within 12 hours after it appeared on YouTube, Smith’s production company was calling.

As a result, Cooper’s vision has grown into a full-fledged drama series, “Bel-Air,” debuting on Peacock on Feb. 13, Super Bowl Sunday, with Smith as an executive producer. The first three episodes will be available to stream, with seven more released weekly after that.

In the first episode, which Cooper directed, police in West Philadelphia catch Will Smith (newcomer Jabari Banks) with a gun. After his wealthy lawyer uncle, Phillip Banks (Adrian Holmes), pulls some strings, Will gets out of jail. But Will’s mom (April Parker Jones) sends her son to Bel Air, California, to live with Uncle Phil, Aunt Viv (Cassandra Freeman) and their family, including immediately jealous cousin Carlton (Olly Sholotan).

The new series reimagines the sitcom characters for a 21st century drama.

“How do we honor the spirit of these characters while grounding them in modern day life?” Cooper says. “How would Carlton, a young Black man who grew up in Bel Air, (react to) overnight having his life changed by his cousin from West Philly, who’s had completely different experiences than him? It’s all about grounding them in reality and also speaking to things that young teenagers experience these days, particularly young Black teenagers exploring what it means to be Black.”

In that first episode, Will and Carlton almost come to blows when Carlton’s white friend says the n-word in a song. (The word is heard multiple times during the episode.)

“For Carlton growing up in Bel Air, he’s lived in a space his entire life where he’s not around a lot of other Black kids,” Cooper says. “Being able to have that conversation through both Will and Carlton’s POV of young, Black kids who grew up where the language means something different. There are many examples of how language in one place doesn’t mean (the same thing as) language in another place. It gave us an opportunity to really peel back the layers on that uncomfortable conversation.”

Cooper says he created “Bel-Air” for Peacock without going back and rewatching old “Fresh Prince” episodes. And he didn’t use stories from the original sitcom to generate the reboot’s plots.

“I never watched the originals and said, what changes would I make?” Cooper says. “It came from such a pure place.”

Kansas City connections

For the Peacock series, Cooper brought along some of the crew he used in Kansas City.

Michael Russaw, who cut hair on the original YouTube short, is the show’s barber. Wlaa Style is in the show’s costume department and has been doing wardrobes for Cooper for years. Johnny Starke, a producer on the short, is a production supervisor.

In addition, Cooper showcases KC artist Jason Wilcox, whose works adorn the walls of the Banks mansion. (Wilcox was also commissioned to create the pieces Aunt Viv paints in the show.) And there are songs by KC’s Amaru Son, Leonard Dstroy and Dominque Sanders and Eddie Moore and his group, We the People.

“It was really important for me to feature artists from Kansas City in the show,” Cooper says. “And people feel that really in the pilot. The Kansas City footprint is there for sure.”

Born in Kansas City, Cooper grew up in Grandview and Martin City before moving to Lee’s Summit at age 15.

In his early teens, he poured his creative energy into music, making beats using Logic Pro on a Mac Mini.

“That’s something that finds its way into my work as a filmmaker, this love for music, and using music as a way to really convey tone,” Cooper says. “Even then I knew I wanted to do something creative and tell stories.”

After attending high school at Lee’s Summit North, Cooper moved back to Grandview. His purchase of a digital camera (a DSLR) on his 18th birthday set him on the path to the career he has today.

“I bought that camera and within two days, I said, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life,” Cooper, 30, recalls. “My generation of filmmakers, we’re like the DSLR generation where we’re at a time where we can get our hands on these really exceptional filmmaking tools and create high-quality images.”

He previously told The Star his earliest filmmaking work involved shooting music videos on behalf of drug dealers for $300 a pop.

A new ‘Bel-Air’

Cooper began shuttling back and forth between Kansas City and Los Angeles, building his resume with cinematography work and shooting commercials. Eventually it got to the point he was spending more time in Los Angeles hotels than back home in KC. He moved to L.A. in early 2019, around the time he released the “Bel-Air” short on YouTube.

“It wasn’t about trying to find a reboot idea or anything,” Cooper says. “It came from a place of pure inspiration and really having a perspective on how I would reimagine this iconic sitcom. … Every component of the vision was clear to me: From how it sounded, the tone, everything was there, so I had to make it.”

There’s no laugh track in Cooper’s short, which features Will Smith (Jerry Madison) getting sent from West Philadelphia to live with rich relatives in California. Will tells his Aunt Viv (Kira Ashby), “My life ain’t a sitcom. I don’t even feel like I belong here.”

Cooper knew it was a valuable idea, but he didn’t know if it would go anywhere.

“I never like to put the cart in front of the horse, so for me it was just all about let’s make the best short that I could possibly make,” he says. “Let’s put everything into the art and then let the people experience it and then go from there.”

Very quickly, the video got the attention of Smith’s Westbrook Studios. A Westbrook representative reached out to arrange a meeting, which Smith called into via FaceTime.

“He was in Miami filming ‘Bad Boys 3’ and so we talked on FaceTime for 30, 45 minutes and it was like I’d known him forever,” Cooper says. “He’s just the best guy and he loved my take. Halfway through the conversation, he’s like, ‘So what do you want to do?’”

Cooper pitched Smith on his plan to turn the short into a one-hour drama. A few weeks later, Cooper flew to Miami to talk with Smith in greater depth, and at the end of the trip they shook hands and agreed to move forward together.

But that proved to be a challenging process due to messy legal rights around the original series that took six months to untangle and settle. And then there’s the general challenge of pushing a TV series idea uphill in collaboration with other people. This was no longer Cooper having sole creative control as he had on the initial “Bel-Air” short. Cast members from the short, mostly Kansas City actors, were out; a new cast was brought in.

“There (are) a lot of different stakeholders who have a lot of different opinions. This is where we ended up landing with the cast that the network, the studio, all of the parties agreed upon,” Cooper says. “I think we have a phenomenal cast, but at the same time, the cast from the trailer did a phenomenal job, and I forever feel gratitude toward them for bringing their talent to the short.”

‘I chase a feeling’

Cooper was in the writers room as the team, led by showrunners T.J. Brady and Rasheed Newson (“The Chi,” “The 100”), plotted and wrote the entire first season. As “Bel-Air” morphed from his short to a multimillion-dollar production, Cooper says it helped that the short existed to act as a North Star.

“It very clearly indicated the tone and informed the creative,” Cooper says. “Peacock and NBCUniversal and Westbrook, they really trusted and believed in my vision. And within that vision compromises were made, but it was always within the vision of how I saw this show.”

The “Bel-Air” pilot feels tonally darker than the short, but the next two episodes lighten up a bit.

“I never really think about terms like gritty or dark when I make art,” Cooper says. “My filmmaking process is pretty simple. I chase a feeling — whether it’s a scene or a moment that I’m looking for — I chase a feeling and whatever comes out in the wash in terms of that feeling will inform the lighting choice, will inform the language of the scene on the page, all in service of that feeling.

“What am I trying to say in this moment? Am I trying to convey warmth, tenderness? Am I trying to convey danger? Fear? The choices that I make artistically come from just what I want to say emotionally.”

Even before Peacock’s “Bel-Air,” Cooper had a deal for a series on Quibi, a short-form streaming service that came and went over the course of 2020. Cooper says his Quibi show, the Kansas City-set “Black Coffee” (with actress Gabrielle Union attached to star), never filmed an episode but it’s still set up at Sony as the show’s producing studio. They’re looking for a new distributor for the show, which, post-Quibi, has been expanded to a half-hour dramedy.

“It’s important for me to still continue to find opportunities to tell Kansas City stories through my work,” Cooper says

To that end, there’s another KC-set series he has in mind, but Cooper says it’s too early to discuss.

“My hope is that, (‘Bel-Air’) and my work will inspire people in our city to really follow their dreams and invest in their dreams and know that it’s possible. It really is,” Cooper says. “There’s so much talent in Kansas City, and all I want to do is highlight that any way I can through my work. I’m very excited about the future projects that are set in Kansas City and hopefully bring more eyes to this beautiful city.”

Freelance writer Rob Owen: RobOwenTV@gmail.com or on Facebook and Twitter as RobOwenTV.

This story was originally published February 7, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Meet the Kansas Citian behind ‘Bel-Air,’ the new dramatic reboot of ‘Fresh Prince’."