Ralph Macchio reveals there are "a few balls up in the air" for 'Cobra Kai' spin-offs
After six seasons, Cobra Kai came to an end back in February, and Ralph Macchio just confirmed there might be some possible spin-offs in the future.
While promoting Karate Kid: Legends, Ralph Macchio told The Hollywood Reporter, "There are a few balls up in the air. You have to be diplomatically safe, and I don’t know which one is going to land. I hope all of them do, or some of them do, or one of them does. The success of Karate Kid: Legends could propel all that stuff. It’s different, but same. There’s a Miyagi-ism for you."
With how the series concluded, there are plenty of paths a spin-off can take. The are many different cast members who could return, including Macchio, William Zabka, Xolo Maridueña, Jacob Bertrand, Mary Mouser, Tanner Buchanan, Peyton List, Gianni Decenzo, Vanessa Rubio, Dallas Dupree Young, Yuji Okumoto, Alicia Hannah-Kim, Griffin Santopietro, and Oona O'Brien.
Courtney Henggeler, who played Amanda LaRusso, has announced that she was done with acting, writing in part, "After 20 plus years of fighting the good fight in the acting business, I hung up my gloves on Friday. I called my agents and told them I was tapping out. I no longer wanted to be a cog in the wheel of the machine."
When he was first told about Karate Kid: Legends, he was still shooting the Netflix show, so he made sure to ask about where the story lands in the timeline. "The Cobra Kai guys — [showrunners] Jon Hurwitz, Josh Heald and Hayden Schlossberg — were not involved with the creation of Karate Kid: Legends. So I got the concept, and to me, it was just about figuring out the genuine, honest connective tissue going forward. For me, it’s always been about carrying the Miyagi-verse or the legacy forward," he explained.
"Chronologically, [Karate Kid: Legends] was always set about three years after the events of Cobra Kai. Cobra Kai started in 2018, and so the kids on that show would be in their third year of college. That was determined early on, and then it was about landing Daniel LaRusso in a way that feels like a natural evolution and progression when we see him three years later. That’s where my real focus was and how I would layer him into this fresh separate storyline. It’s like its own ecosystem in the grand universe," the actor continued to share. "At the end of Cobra Kai, he lands in a very positive way. He and Johnny Lawrence are the best versions of themselves going forward. In Karate Kid: Legends, we find him being far more Miyagi in his sensibilities and his grounded wisdom. In Cobra Kai, it was designed that the more knee-jerk and up-in-Johnny’s-face he was, the better it was to service Johnny Lawrence’s redemption. So I’d be like, 'Okay, but when do we land in Miyagi-land?' That is where I thought LaRusso would end up with all his wisdom from his mentor, a very grounded mother, a good life, a good business and a good wife. And then we landed Daniel at that place."
The morning after the Cobra Kai wrap party, he was on a plane to Montreal. "I stepped onto a running train, and it was the weirdest feeling. I literally was at somebody else’s house, but I kind of helped build the house. So it was interesting to do this full shift by leaving this family of seven years’ time and 65 episodes, which is kind of unheard of today, certainly in the streaming world. And then I was stepping onto a big screen movie that I was a part of but wasn’t settled into yet," he expressed. "So that transition was a bit of a challenge, not that anyone made it difficult. I was just in my own head now that I was shifting gears in a story three years later."
He then added that Karate Kid: Legends was originally scheduled for release on December 13, 2024: "I was screaming constantly every day: 'This movie has to come out after the show finishes.' And once marketing got together and realized that [the December ‘24 release] would not benefit either, they did the right thing. Karate Kid: Legends is now coming at a time where I like to believe that Cobra Kai fans are thirsty for another chapter. There’s also brand-new fans, who may or may not have even seen Cobra Kai or the original film, that would have a great time at the cinema."
Karate Kid: Legends is now playing in theaters. All episodes of Cobra Kai are streaming on Netflix.
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