Holy crap! Seriously?!
Despite the dreadful remake a few years ago, we now have a sequel to the original 1984 Karate Kid on the way!
Seriously!
It will be a Youtube Red show from Sony Pictures Television Studios and will be called Cobra Kai (surely Karate Guy was the way forward here?) and, get ready for this, will star Ralph Macchio and William Zabka as Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence!
It will be a set up for the next generation of Karate Kids.
The two actors have been friends – despite being enemies in the movie, weird, huh – since filming the original waaaay back in 1984 and have been talking about why the sequel series, written by Josh Heald (Hot Tub Time Machine) and Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg (Harold and Kumar), is happening and why they are both on board.
“I’ve been very protective of the franchise and where Daniel LaRusso sits in the world 30 years later,” says Macchio.
“[but] these guys, Josh, Hayden and Jon had such a smart and fresh angle in. It was relevant today yet had all the pop culture — they had the perfect marriage and angle in bringing it from the Johnny Lawrence [point of view].
“It’s not unlike how Creed was a film that was about Apollo Creed’s son but you had Rocky Balboa in it in a certain way. [Cobra Kai] is not the first time anyone looks at a fresh angle from the villain’s point of view, but it was just smart to go that way and to cover these dual lives and do a rivalry series in a smart and funny way, and on top of that infuse the high school world — which is a big part of the show as well — for the new generation.”
Fans of the original movies will of course remember the name Cobra Kai was the name of the dojo belonging to the villainous Kreese. In the series Daniel will be a father and will be drawn back into the whole Karate world when Johnny decides to reopen the Dojo.
“Johnny befriends one [of Daniel’s kids], and that is how it connects that world into our own rivalry world,” continues Macchio, “There’s a tremendous amount of heart and kick-ass action sequences and martial arts, but the inherent humor comes from the fact that these are two guys who are in their 50s and still have an ax to grind. It goes back to those places where you just can’t let go and you’re still a teenager at heart and yet balancing your adult life — it’s like the rise of the Cobra Kai. It’s the worst nightmare for someone like Daniel LaRusso.”
Of course the absence of the late Pat Morita, who played the character of Mr Miyagi will be addressed in the show: “I would love to have had Mr Miyagi’s wisdom many times in raising my own kids. There’s a piece of that void in his life that is going to resonate on the dramatic side of the show and where martial arts, [which] was such a piece of his adolescence and young adulthood, is now brought back by the nemesis raising the banner on the Cobra Kai. And now Daniel can’t sit and let that happen.”
Zabka is keen to point out that Johnny won’t just be a villain, but will rather be a guy who never thought he was on the wrong side: “They’ve gone on with their lives, but that rivalry is always still there. It’s like a football game you lost in high school but the whole world saw it. It’s always there: ‘If only I just did this…'”
“I never saw Johnny as a bad guy; I always saw him as the antagonist but at his core, he had a good heart. At the very end [of the first movie] he hands him a trophy and says, ‘You’re all right, LaRusso.’ He has a good heart and they tap into that in the show. You’re going to empathize with him. He’s still tough and rough around the edges, but it’s a really smart and fun take on it and I think it’ll be really entertaining.”
This is awesome news!
Who’s excited?
Source: THR
Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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