Now this is a story all about how Peacock’s Bel-Air continues to experience growing pains.
The dramatic update of Will Smith’s beloved Fresh Prince of Bel-Air has changed showrunners again. This time, Carla Banks-Waddles has been promoted from co-exec producer to exec producer and showrunner for Bel-Air’s second season as part of her overall deal with studio Universal Television. She replaces T.J. Brady and Rasheed Newson (Army Wives, Lie to Me) at the helm of Bel-Air, which counts Smith and original series creators Andy and Susan Borowitz among its exec producers. Brady and Newson left following creative differences with Peacock and producers Universal Television.
Banks-Waddles, who penned episode seven, becomes Bel-Air’s fourth — you read that right — showrunner. The series, which landed at Peacock with a two-season, straight-to-series order following a multiple-outlet bidding war, originally was picked up with Chris Collins (The Wire, Sons of Anarchy) set to serve as showrunner.
Sources said Brady and Newson took over season one after Collins — and his replacement, Diane Houston (Empire) — mutually parted ways with producers including Smith, Quincy Jones and Benny Medina. Sources at the time told THR that Peacock was looking for a broad-skewing network-style show, while Collins wanted to deliver an edgy, premium series. Collins exited in December 2020 and was replaced by Houston who both joined and departed last year following some rewrites of season one. Brady and Newson were brought in last year under Houston and Malcolm Spellman (Falcon and Winter Soldier)and steered season one as their first showrunning job.
Collins was originally poised to co-write the scripts alongside Morgan Cooper, whose four-minute clip went viral in March 2019 and caught Smith’s attention. Cooper, a Fresh Prince superfan, created and directed the trailer that reimagined the series as if it were a drama. Cooper continues to exec produce alongside Banks-Waddles, Spellman, Smith, Terence Carter, James Lassiter, Miguel Melendez, Medina, Quincy Jones, the Borowitzes, Brady and Newson.
Bel-Air was a big play for Peacock, which beat out the likes of HBO Max and Netflix for rights to the series. The show’s first season failed to become Peacock’s signature series and currently has a lackluster 65 percent score among critics and ho-hum 72 percent rating with viewers on Rotten Tomatoes.
Banks-Waddles, repped by Gersh, the Shuman Company and Felker Toczek, counts NBC’s Good Girls, The Soul Man as well as Half & Half among her credits.
A return date for season two of Bel-Air has not yet been determined.
