I hated the idea for this back when that fake fan trailer went around the Internet, and I’m not interested in seeing this.
But honestly, it’s not that hard to reimagine Fresh Prince as a drama. The elements for a more serious version of the show were always there, even in the original sitcom (at least, in the first three seasons). They just played them for laughs and not melodrama. But it’s all right there in the premise – Will, a black kid from a working-class black neighborhood in West Philly, suddenly finds his life uprooted when he gets into trouble and is moved to a rich white neighborhood in Bel-Air. There are a dozen conflicts and topics you can mine from that premise, and a good writer could actually make a great teen show out of it. So I can see why the CW was interested.
Not that I think a reboot of Fresh Prince is necessary, but this is the era of reboots and remakes in general. Full House got one, Punky Brewster got one, Saved by the Bell has one, iCarly has one, Rugrats is getting one, etc. Every popular IP from the ‘90s is fair game out here. And the majority of those shows feel like pale imitations of the original because they just try to take the same exact show as the original, and set them in the present day. So if you have to reboot the Fresh Prince, at least doing it as a drama gives you a different take on it.