Welcome to your fourth installment of Collider Movie Club! Hosted by Coy Jandreau and Perri Nemiroff, Movie Club offers an in-depth exploration of the key themes, execution and impact of some of our favorite films. This week, Coy and Perri welcome Cobra Kai creators and executive producers Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg to Movie Club to discuss the movie that started it all, The Karate Kid!
The movie was a huge hit back in 1984, paving the way to three sequel films, The Karate Kid Part II, The Karate Kid Part III and then The Next Karate Kid starring Hilary Swank. The original film was then rebooted in 2010 with Jaden Smith in the title role before the reins were passed over to Heald, Hurwitz and Schlossberg for their phenomenal continuation of Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny Lawrence's (William Zabka) story. In an industry that loves to bring back popular films and franchises, I'm a big believer that Cobra Kai is one of the best of the bunch. Not only does the YouTube-turned-Netflix series continue the characters' stories with great purpose, but it also manages to shed new light on the events of the original film.
That being said, another viewing of The Karate Kid is an absolute must before Season 3 of Cobra Kai arrives on Netflix in the New Year, and who better to revisit the film with than Heald, Hurwitz and Schlossberg? You can check out our Movie Club discussion of The Karate Kid in the video at the top of this article! You might even find some Cobra Kai Season 3 teases in the mix, like perhaps a discussion of the value of all three approaches to teaching karate - Miyagi-Do, Johnny's Cobra Kai and Kreese's tactics. Here's what Hurwitz had to say about that:
"One of the big things that we're always talking about with the show and when writing the show is the different perspectives of the karate and of these characters, that everybody, even Kreese in our minds, is a character who believes he's teaching you the right way. He believes that his lessons are lessons that are valuable to people. We sometimes talk about [how] some students may benefit more from Miyagi-Do karate, some may benefit more from Cobra Kai in certain ways. If you're timid and having people walk all over you and things like that, there's some benefit to the strike first attitude and to stand up for yourself and those kind of lessons that maybe a sensei Kreese or Cobra Kai would teach you. And in terms of Miyagi-Do, there's obvious value in everything that's being taught there. Certain kids may need those values and need to find balance in their lives in those kinds of ways. So it's always the discussion that we're talking about, the push and pull and the point of view of, what is the right way?"
This episode of the show is brought to you by Movies Anywhere, a service designed for movie collectors that brings all of your favorite films together in one spot, even if they were purchased in different places. The Karate Kid comes with the added bonus of being a Screen Pass title on Movies Anywhere. Screen Pass allows you to give someone access to your favorite movies, without them ever leaving your collection. So that means if you own The Karate Kid and have a friend that never got around to watching it, you can send them a ScreenPass so they can catch up!
After you check out this Karate Kid edition of Collider Movie Club, stay tuned because we’ll be talking Wonder Woman next ahead of the release of Wonder Woman 1984 on December 25th.
This article is sponsored content presented by Movies Anywhere. Movies Anywhere and Screen Pass are trademarks of Movies Anywhere, LLC.