New Karate Kid Movie Casts Lead Actor

American Born Chinese actor Ben Wang will star alongside Ralph Macchio and Jackie Chan

By Russ Burlingame

American Born Chinese actor Ben Wang will play the lead role in the forthcoming revival of Sony's The Karate Kid franchise. The movie will bring together the various threads of the Karate Kid franchise, with Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio both returning to reprise their roles from the 2010 and 1984 movies, respectively. This is, of course, not the first time Macchio has returned to the role, having starred in two sequels as well as the Cobra Kai TV series, which has yet to conclude. According to The Hollywood Reporter, who broke the news of Wang's casting, the star emerged as the frontrunner after producers saw thousands of self-tapes and auditions from around the world.

Wang, apparently, also speaks Mandarin and actually studies a number of martial arts, and the latter will presumably make it easier to get the movie into active production with a minimum of prep time. This is the first feature film in the franchise to star Macchio since Karate Kid Part III in 1989, and the first new movie in the franchise since 2010.

"The thing that's been created, there's kind of this Karate Kid Cinematic Universe now where Cobra Kai is, you know, at the center of that and when that day does come in for a landing, there are other areas to draw from," Macchio recently told ComicBook.com. "I mean, whether it's ... Is there a Miyagi origin story? Is there a Cobra Kai prequel before The Karate Kid? Is there spin-offs with some of the young cast of these characters? Who knows? But we're not done as long as we're given the opportunity to really bring it in. As long as it evolves organically, these guys that write the show really have their finger on the pulse of that." 

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Macchio added, "There's stuff that they wrote in Season 3 that didn't happen until Season 4 'cause there wasn't any more room in Season 3. There's stuff that was in Season 5 that we know we shot that is being held for the future if we get that green light, so there's more to come, we hope."

Cobra Kai Season 5 is now streaming on Netflix, and the new Karate Kid is scheduled to be released on December 13, 2024. 

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