Confusion reigns with the news that Jackie Chan is reportedly in talks to return for the upcoming new Karate Kid movie at Sony Pictures. According to reports by Discussing Film, Chan is to reprise the role of Mr Han, the mentor. Chan was the best thing in the surprisingly good remake of The Karate Kid from 2010. Once you got over the fact it was probably unnecessary, and not actually about karate, there was an entertaining, exciting, and heartwarming movie in there and Harald Zwart does a great job behind the camera. The studio liked it too, it made them $359 million worldwide on a $40 million budget. It is not known if the lead from that movie, Jaden Smith, will return.
Why confusion? Well, when the project was announced in September last year much was made, in their own statements, about a:
“…return of the original Karate Kid franchise…”
Yet all the original Karate Kid characters are a bit busy right now with Cobra Kai, the continuation series on Netflix which is a massive smash hit. It has been known for a while that none of the talent involved in Cobra Kai is involved in this new movie. So how is this a return? Is there going to be some “stolen valor” style franchise hijacking going on? Will they try to claim theirs was original and hope nobody was looking? Who knows!
Jonathan Entwistle (I Am Not Okay With This, The End of the F—— World) directs and executive produces the new Karate Kid project. The release date of June 7th 2024 is likely to be impacted by the current WGA strike and talent scheduling.
Meanwhile, Cobra Kai will return for its sixth and final season… but nobody knows exactly when as the writers’ room for that show is also shut down due to the strike.
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