Cobra Kai Co-Creator Explains How the Series Continues to Honor the Karate Kid Movies

Heading into its fifth season, Cobra Kai has become one of the most popular shows on all of Netflix. For four entire seasons, Cobra Kai has become its own universe, evolving from just a Karate Kid legacy sequel to something unique and different. Most of its characters weren’t even alive when the events of The Karate Kid took place. As the show continues to expand, however, it never loses sight of Mr. Miyagi or the film franchise that started it all.

That can be something of a challenge after a few seasons, especially when most of the characters are original creations. Appearing at Variety‘s Night in the Writers’ Room event, Cobra Kai co-creator Hayden Schlossberg explained how the series continues to honor The Karate Kid while telling its own story.

“It’s fun, you expand the universe. You have new characters and with new characters new perspective, new backgrounds, and so that brings the modern element to it,” Schlossberg said. “But we start out with, ‘Hey, remember the roots.’ The Bonsai tree grows and you get to explore different types of characters in a TV series that you wouldn’t in a movie. But the roots are bullying, mentors, it’s overcoming things, it’s dealing with the past. It’s that visceral feeling of feeling weak and then somebody gives you something. On this show it’s karate, but in life it can be a million different things that change you and give you confidence. And so each season, by each season finale there’s some crazy thing that’s happening.”

“It gets to ‘the soul of the Valley is dependent on who wins this nunchuck fight.’ But at the core of it is what I fell in love with with The Karate Kid, why it’s a classic,” he continued. “The different cultures meeting, people you wouldn’t expect to be connecting, connecting. Every year we’re like, ‘Okay, let’s forget everything for a second and go back to The Karate Kid. Why do we love this?’ We watch the movie again. And that’s why I think it’s worked on a global level, because they’re universal stories. So we try to focus on that, while taking advantage of different characters, genders, backgrounds and play things out so it feels like The Karate Kid but it’s something totally different.”

The fifth season of Cobra Kai arrives on Netflix this September.