Interview: ‘Cobra Kai’ creators on the legacy of ‘The Karate Kid’ and that killer cameo in season 3 [VIDEO]

Cobra Kai wouldn’t exist without the return of Ralph Macchio as Daniel LaRusso and William Zabka as Johnny Lawrence. The legacy of The Karate Kid films of the 1980s have lasted long past simple nostalgia and are are a part of the fabric of pop culture.

Cobra Kai takes place 34 after events of the 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament, a down-and-out Johnny Lawrence seeks redemption by reopening the infamous Cobra Kai dojo, reigniting his rivalry with a now successful Daniel LaRusso. But from season 1’s LaRusso vs Lawrence rivalry reignited, the show has opened up to surprising alliances and old villains that are new again.

I talked with Cobra Kai creators Jon Hurwitz, Josh Heald and Hayden Schlossberg about the endurance of The Karate Kid and its themes, heading to Japan with Ralph Macchio, Tamlyn Tomita and Yuji Okumoto, finding shading in John Kreese’s backstory and that long-awaited cameo from the past that will be a fan favorite of the Miyagi-verse.

Full spoiler talk here, viewer beware. Cobra Kai‘s third season is currently available to stream exclusively on Netflix.

Cobra Kai image courtesy of Curtis Bonds Baker/Netflix

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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