'Cobra Kai': Showrunners Planning An Ending "Well Beyond" Season 4; How Dan Trachtenberg Helped Facilitate Big Season 3 Reveal
According to Netflix's in-app chart, Cobra Kai was the number one show in the United States on the streaming service over the weekend, so it's clear that the Karate Kid sequel series has carved its way into the cultural consciousness in a big way with its third season. Season 4 has already been given the go-ahead, but how long will the series last? "We have an endgame in our heads," the showrunners said in a new interview, and they've hinted that we could be seeing much more of this story play out before they wrap things up.
Plus, find out how 10 Cloverfield Lane director Dan Trachtenberg helped facilitate one of Cobra Kai season 3's big reveals. Spoilers for season 3 ahead.
Cobra Kai Ending Plans
Speaking with TV Line, executive producer and co-showrunner Josh Heald dropped this fascinating nugget about their plans to eventually end the show. Don't worry, fans – if they have their way, it sounds like that won't happen for a long time.
"We have an endgame in our heads," he said. "We've had one for quite some time, and it's not in Season 4. It's well beyond that. In our minds, we have seasons' worth of story that is necessary to tell before we get to that endgame. That will be a discussion going forward with our new partners at Netflix. Can we write to that endgame? Can we know that it's coming? That's not always the case with television and we respect that. For now, we're continuing to write at the same speed and with the same path that we set out with from the beginning."
So what happens when the showrunners of a popular series formulate an ambitious, seasons-long arc for the story they want to tell – but find themselves on Netflix, a platform which has becoming increasingly averse to renewing shows past their third seasons? It sounds like we're about to find out.
How Dan Trachtenberg Helped a Season 3 Plotline Come to Life
Final warning: season 3 spoilers ahead.
It turns out that our friend and yours, Dan Trachtenberg, played a significant role in convincing Elisabeth Shue to return to the Karate Kid universe and reprise her role as Ali ("with an i").
"It all started when I was working on The Boys," Shue explained in an interview with EW. "I was working with this wonderful director, Dan Trachtenberg, who directed the pilot for The Boys. To be honest, I really hadn't thought about being on Cobra Kai. When I showed up on the set [of The Boys] for the first day, Dan came right over and said, 'You're doing Cobra Kai, right?' I was like, 'What? I don't know...Do you think that's a good idea?' He goes, 'Is that a good idea? You have to be on Cobra Kai!' I said, 'Why, why do you care so much?' He said, 'You have no idea how important The Karate Kid is in my life.'
"He told me what a great movie it is and how much he loved Cobra Kai, and that it would just be devastating — 'devastating,' he kept saying — for the fans and for the memory of The Karate Kid if I wasn't [on the show]. I was like, 'Whoa – okay!' It was just very sweet, and it made me think, Oh, I haven't really investigated this."
Trachtenberg's passion convinced Shue to have a meeting with Heald and his co-showrunners Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, and their pitch won her over. The full interview is definitely worth reading if you're a fan of the show.
Cobra Kai season 3 is streaming now on Netflix.