Look, we know that as franchises go on and are successful, producers and studios will do whatever it takes to milk that cash cow. We respect it, though we don’t always agree with it.
Take the Karate Kid franchise. If it’s not Ralph Macchio as Daniel Russo, we try not to acknowledge that any other version of the Karate Kid existed. It’s not even trying to be offensive to Hilary Swank or Jaden Smith – but some originals you just can’t fuck with.
But with the success of Cobra Kai, we do understand why the question of if Hilary Swank’s character will make an appearance. (Though personally, we hope she’s pissed at Netflix for cancelling Away).
“We always say that our show takes place in the Miyagi-verse…in our minds, any story in which Mr. Miyagi was a character, with Pat Morita playing Mr. Miyagi I should say, is canon to our world,” co-creator Jon Hurwitz shared in an interview with CinemaBlend. “The Next Karate Kid is a part of our universe.”
He added, “We believe that the events of that movie happened…In terms of that movie, it has its pluses and minuses. One of the things that’s really special about it is it’s very early work for Hilary Swank and she’s gone on to be one of the great actors in Hollywood.”
Though he goes on to say that her character is one that they talk about in the writers room, he doesn’t confirm if we’ll ever see her in the show. It’s something that we will all just have to wait and see about.
Would you want to see her character, Julie Pierce, on Cobra Kai? We can’t wait to see if she does, even if we may not want to go down that road.
Sound off in the comments with your thoughts!