Editor's take: Reviving a franchise as beloved as The Karate Kid is almost always a recipe for disaster yet somehow, executive producers Jon Hurwitz, Josh Heald and Hayden Schlossberg defied all the odds. The series stays true to the original with lots of throwbacks for diehard fans while successfully managing to introduce several new characters without it feeling forced. With any luck, Netflix will be able to keep the series going for years to come.
Netflix has acquired the streaming rights to smash hit Cobra Kai from YouTube and will host the first two seasons of the series on its platform later this year.
Cobra Kai is the continuation of The Karate Kid trilogy of films from the 1980s. It picks up nearly 35 years after the events in the first movie and stars much of the original cast including Ralph Macchio and William Zabka and Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence, respectively.
The first season of the web series was incredibly well received, garnering a score of 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. The first episode of season one has amassed nearly 87 million views since its May 2018 premiere on YouTube.
The Google subsidiary launched season two in April 2019 and was greenlit for a third season. But then, YouTube shifted gears and decided to get out of the scripted show business. Disney-owned Hulu reportedly expressed interest in picking up the series when it was being shopped around but ultimately, Netflix garnered the rights.