In this week’s episode of Bingeworthy, our TV and streaming podcast host Mike DeAngelo practices his high kicks while discussing “Cobra Kai.” The hit Netflix series follows “The Karate Kid” characters Johnny Lawrence and Daniel LaRusso. Their rivalry is reignited over 30 years after their paths crossed in the 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament, sweeping a new group of karate-kicking youngsters into the drama. The show stars William Zabka, Ralph Macchio, Xolo Maridueña, Mary Mouser, Tanner Buchanan, Martin Kove, and more.
Showrunners Jon Hurwitz, Josh Heald, and Hayden Schlossberg joined Bingeworthy to discuss spoilers (yes, SPOILER ALERT) for Season 6, Part 1 of the hit series. During the interview, the team discussed their goals for the first five episodes of the epic final season after the fall of Cobra Kai and Terry Silver in the previous season.
“As you saw in that first episode, it’s about bringing everybody back together,” Hurwitz shared. “Most of the dojo is all in one place, and it’s bringing them together. And then having Johnny, Daniel, and Chozen go, ‘Okay, we need to figure out our dojo name,’ and what’s their path going forward?”
Much of the initial five episodes of this final season are spent gathering the six team members who will represent the new, united LaRusso and Lawrence dojo in the much-anticipated Sekai Taikai tournament in Barcelona. The showrunners discussed narrowing down the team and constructing a satisfying journey for fans.
“We talked about many permutations of [the team] in the writer’s room,” Hurwitz said. “First, it was, ‘How many slots should there be,’ and we landed on six because we wanted a certain number of characters and certain specific characters to be able to be there beyond that top four. We knew that we wanted Hawk to be there with his red, white, and blue Mohawk – his America Mohawk, and we just knew that we wanted him to be on the international stage and Dimitri, as well, because of their storyline and the comedy that Dimitri brings. So we knew we would want to get those guys there besides the core four. We knew early on that we would have Tori switch sides and end up with Cobra Kai, so we knew there would be an extra slot beyond there. So it was a big discussion as to, ‘Okay, what’s the path that isn’t just a straight line that gets everybody in there?”
One of the series’ big revelations involves a darker past than previously known for Mr. Miyagi, leading to unease among fans. If any character is sacred, it’s Miyagi, and the showrunners discussed approaching this story with great reverence.
“Mr. Miyagi is a character and a man who lived a long life and had a storied history. And there are pieces of that history we know from what he told Daniel in ‘The Karate Kid’ and in ‘The Karate Kid Part II,’ particularly,” Heald said. “It was our desire to begin to peel back the layer of Mr. Miyagi that is completely deified and start to look at him like a man – like any one of our parents or grandparents that have moments in their life, events in their life that are not necessarily the first story you’re leading with when you’re talking to a child or a grandchild or somebody that you’re mentoring. And also, what are the stories that we don’t know? And not all of them will be an A plus or a home run out of the park on first blanche. So it was important to us to start doing it in a way that would obviously affect Daniel, but also in a way that makes sense for the character that we know and love.”
The revelations teased have led to speculation of a young Mr. Miyagi prequel series, which the showrunner team was happy to all but confirm.
“We’ve begun to create this backstory that feels right to us, that feels honest, that feels grounded, that really digs into Mr. Miyagi as a human being,” Heald said. “And we feel, at the end of the day, when the whole story is told, that the fandom will hopefully embrace the story that we’re introducing from Mr. Miyagi, which is going to have rises and falls and peaks and valleys like any other character that’s ever existed.”
“There’s nothing official to say, but the Miyagi backstory is the perfect [spin-off] show in our minds,” Schlossberg added. “The cool thing is that ‘Cobra Kai’ is a spinoff of ‘The Karate Kid,’ and it made sense to do what we were doing because the lead character was kind of a guy who you wouldn’t say is necessarily the best mentor, but in a way he is for Miguel. And when you think about what you could do with a Mr. Miyagi show, it feels like it could be something that’s totally different and yet really connected to ‘The Karate Kid,’ as well. We like the idea of exploring every type of show from the more dramatic side to the more comedic.”
Fans have also been teased about a new film in the “Karate Kid” universe that brings together Jackie Chan’s Mr Han character from the 2010 remake and Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso in one film. And while “Cobra Kai” might be responsible for the renewed fan interest in “The Karate Kid,” the team confirmed that they have no involvement or crossover whatsoever.
“I can just definitively say they are not connected,” Heald said of the rumors. “We’ve always looked at ‘Cobra Kai’ as continuing the canonical universe of the original franchise, and I’m sure that the filmmakers of the new movie are also thinking along those lines, but they’re also thinking along the lines of continuing the Jackie Chan storyline that was introduced in the 2010 movie. Because they’re bringing Daniel LaRusso into that story, there’s obviously overlap there, but we were invited to see an early version of the story that they were putting together, and we remain cheerleaders and are curious to see how that movie looks because we were not on set and we didn’t write it and we didn’t produce it, but we’ve always taken the attitude that there can be parallel development within this universe. If you look at Batman, you will see that Christopher Nolan, Matt Reeves, and Todd Phillips all exist in that universe without feeling them bump up [against each other]. So we take that attitude as well. The Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith movie came out before we came along. Here’s another chapter in that story that brings in Daniel LaRusso, and we’ll switch things up a little bit. But the good thing is we didn’t have to write to that movie, and that movie didn’t have to accommodate our story either.”
After the success of “Cobra Kai,” Schlossberg, Heald, and Hurwitz are often asked if they’re interested in reinterpreting any other famous franchises from the past. It turns out they’ve already got some in mind – one of which, sadly, is impossible.
“We’re working on something right now that we’re developing, which is a reimagining of something from the past that we think could be really fun,” Schlossberg said (hinting at their previously reported “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” spin-off. “But we’ve talked about an array of things. For us, the dream world is ‘Back to the Future,’ but we know that that’s not going to happen because we love the ‘Back to the Future’ movies as much as we love ‘The Karate Kid’ franchise. I think we would have interesting things to do within that space. All that being said, we have immense respect for the filmmakers behind the ‘Back to the Future’ series, and they’ve expressed strong feelings that they’re not interested in doing more over there. So we respect that. So, if they ever changed their mind, they could give us a call. We’re on the list of people that hopefully would be considered. But whether it’s ‘The Goonies,’ whether it’s – at one point dabbled with the idea of ‘Major League,’ which we love. We’re just super fans of all sorts of entertainment and have an open mind to a wide array of things.”
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The Playlist Presents – The Heald, Hurwitz, and Schlossberg TV Recommendation Playlist:
1.) “Obliterated” (2023) – Netflix Series Created By Jon Hurwitz, Josh Heald, and Hayden Schlossberg (Hurwitz’s Pick)
2.) “Oz” (1997-2003) – HBO Series Created By Tom Fontana
3.) “Degrassi: The Next Generation” (2001-2015) – Created By Yan Moore, Aaron Martin, James Hurst, and Linda Schuyler
4.) “Tokyo Vice” (2022-2024) – Created By J.T. Rogers
5.) “Twisted Metal” (2023-Present) – Developed for Television By Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick
“Cobra Kai” Season 6, Part 1 is on Netflix now, with Parts 2 & 3 coming in November 2024 and Early 2025, respectively. Listen to the spoiler-filled interview below: