Key Takeaways
- Peacock is developing Hilary, a Bel-Air spinoff that would follow Coco Jones’ Hilary Banks as she moves to New York for a surprise job with celebrity chef Yvonne Durand.
- The series would see Hilary build a career and new life without the Banks family name, shifting away from Bel-Air’s finale while echoing her move to New York in the original Fresh Prince sitcom.
- Girls Trip writer Tracy Oliver will write and executive produce alongside Jones, Will Smith, Morgan Cooper and Westbrook Studios, potentially giving Peacock its first scripted-original spinoff.
Bel-Air may have ended its run, but Peacock is already looking at a way to keep the franchise alive.
The streamer is developing Hilary, a potential Bel-Air spinoff starring Coco Jones as Hilary Banks, according to Deadline. Jones would reprise the role she played across all four seasons of the dramatic Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reimagining, with the new show taking the character out of Southern California and dropping her into New York City.
The proposed series finds Hilary accepting a surprise job offer from celebrity chef Yvonne Durand before impulsively moving across the country. Once in New York, she sets out to establish herself without relying on the Banks family name, while navigating the complications that come with her career, relationships, and new life.
The setup notably changes course from where Bel-Air left Hilary when the show wrapped in December. In the finale, she returned to Los Angeles after spending time in Costa Rica and planned to open her own cafe. Sending her to New York instead would bring the character closer to her fate on the original Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, where Karyn Parsons’ Hilary also moved to New York at the end of the sitcom.
Tracy Oliver, whose credits include Girls Trip, Harlem and The Blackening, is writing Hilary. Jones and Oliver will also executive produce alongside Will Smith and Westbrook Studios executives Terence Carter, David Boorstein and Miguel Melendez.
Morgan Cooper, whose viral fan film inspired Bel-Air, is among the other executive producers. Universal Television and Smith’s Westbrook Studios, which produced Bel-Air, are behind the project.
The development comes after Bel-Air spent four seasons building its own identity while maintaining ties to the sitcom that launched Smith’s acting career. Smith himself finally stepped onscreen in the series finale, appearing opposite Jabari Banks’ Will during one of the reboot’s last scenes.
Smith’s character encounters the younger Will as he prepares to leave Los Angeles for college in Philadelphia. During their conversation, he warns him that growing up will inevitably involve mistakes.
“Oh no, no, sir,” Smith tells him after Will suggests the older man seems to have life figured out. “Trust me, you’re going to mess some things up and do some dumb shit. But, you’re human. You’ll learn, you’ll grow.”
Smith was the last in a long line of Fresh Prince veterans to enter the reboot’s world. Janet Hubert, Tatyana Ali, Joseph Marcell, Daphne Maxwell Reid, Vernee Watson-Johnson and Tyra Banks all made appearances during Bel-Air’s run, although generally as characters different from the ones they originally played.
Now Jones could become the first Bel-Air cast member to carry the franchise forward. The Grammy-winning singer and actress has remained busy outside the series, including roles in Strung and the upcoming romantic comedy That’s Her.
If Hilary moves forward, it would also mark new territory for Peacock: Bel-Air, which premiered in February 2022 as one of the streamer's early breakout originals, could become its first scripted original to spin off.
