A new Karate Kid movie marks "the return of the original" franchise

A new Karate Kid is in the works, Sony has announced.

This will be the first Karate Kid movie since the 2010 reboot, which starred Jaden Smith as the 12-year-old Dre Parker and Jackie Chan as his martial arts mentor, Mr. Han. Despite respectable success with critics and at the box office, a sequel to the reboot never surfaced.

However, Sony has surprise-announced "the return of the original Karate Kid franchise," which kicked off in 1984. The original film starred Ralph Macchio as protagonist Daniel LaRusso, the late Pat Morita as his mentor Mr. Miyagi, and William Zabka as his main rival Johnny Lawrence.

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No details about the new Karate Kid movie's cast and crew have been announced, and so it's entirely a mystery how Sony will tie it into the original franchise. It's notable that both Macchio and LaRusso have starred in the TV series spinoff, Cobra Kai, for five highly successful seasons. Despite the fact that new episodes have yet to get the green light from Netflix, we're expecting a Cobra Kai season 6 announcement any day now.

Since the Netflix series stars the original franchise's characters and actors, there's a high likelihood that we'll see the same faces return for the upcoming movie - especially when you consider the creators told GamesRadar+ recently that they have "lots of ideas" for spinoffs. Still, until we hear confirmation from Sony or Netflix, we're just speculating.

Sony says the new Karate Kid will premiere on June 7, 2024 - almost 40 years to the date from the first movie's debut.

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After earning an English degree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.