If you thought a $56 million first place opening at the box office and tons of positive reviews didn't automatically mean we'd be seeing a sequel to The Karate Kid, then you just haven't been paying attention to Hollywood for the past – I dunno – three or four decades. Heck, the original Karate Kid franchise produced four films, so it seems plausible that this new one would give us at least two.
Deadline reports that Sony is already meeting with writers to get their take on where the story should go next. This Karate Kid, while set in a different country, borrowed lots from its predecessor in terms of story beats and memorable scenes. A Karate Kid sequel, however, would have a tough time borrowing from 1986's Karate Kid, Part II since the whole idea of that movie was to pick up our two Californian main characters and plop them down in Okinawa, Japan, where Daniel would square off against kids that were a little more dangerous than your typical schoolyard bullies.
But since the new Karate Kid was already set overseas, a sequel would have to take the story in an entirely new direction. Obviously the stakes would need to be raised – and I could see them lifting from Karate Kid, Part II in that respect, forcing Dre to fight someone who literally wants to kill him – but do you reverse it then and bring Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan to America? Or perhaps to a different country where neither one speaks the native language?
What do you think? Sound off on your ideas for a Karate Kid sequel in the comments below…
