'Cobra Kai' Creators Say Season 3 Will Be The Biggest Yet, Explain Why Netflix Is The Perfect New Home

Netflix recently announced that the original series Cobra Kai, a sequel to the Karate Kid film franchise that YouTube supported for two seasons, would be arriving on the streaming service sometime in the future. YouTube has pulled back on how much they're spending on original narrative programming, so Netflix is also picking up the show's third season. Thankfully, it's a shift that creators Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and Josh Heald are very happy about, especially since the third season is said to be their biggest season yet.

Cobra Kai stars Ralph Macchio and William Zabka as Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence, reigniting their rivalry over 30 years after their famous fight in the 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament. This time, each of their kids gets caught up in the drama after Johnny reopens the infamous Cobra Kai dojo, which introduces some other new characters to the franchise. This doesn't sit well with Daniel, who now runs his own car dealership and tries to instill the values of his mentor Mr. Miyagi in his family's life.io9 caught up with Hurwitz, Schlossberg and Heald this week after news of Cobra Kai on Netflix was announced. The upcoming third season will continue to dig into the past of The Karate Kid franchise, and this time they're heading to Okinawa, Japan, where Daniel and Mr. Miyagi traveled to in The Karate Kid Part II. With the third season being the biggest the series has had, the creators wanted to make sure it could debut at their new streaming home. Hurwitz said:

"It was really important for us that season three be at whatever the new platform would be because we feel so great about season three. We just finished shooting it and we want it to have the biggest possible audience. So within the past bunch of months, it wasn't a question of 'Oh, my God, is it going to land somewhere?' We felt pretty confident it would land somewhere. We just wanted it to be at the best place, which is Netflix."

Funnily enough, Netflix was extremely interested in picking up Cobra Kai from the beginning, but YouTube, at a time when they were ambitious to expand their offering of original programming, outbid them in just the right way to snag it. Hurwitz explained:

"Netflix was extremely interested when we first went out with it. They didn't pass on it. They made offers and were very aggressive at the time. The only reason it didn't go to Netflix back then was simply because of YouTube's aggressiveness and guaranteeing a full season of the show before we had ever put a word on the page."

When Cobra Kai returns on Netflix, Hurwitz says, "It's a season of rebirth and regrouping for a lot of characters. And it's a season where we look to the past to see our pathway to the future." Hopefully that means Netflix will be on board to keep Cobra Kai going for a little while, at least as long as Hurwitz, Schlossberg and Heald have more ideas to continue the story. You can hear more from them about Cobra Kai over at io9.

There's no date for when the first two seasons of Cobra Kai will land on Netflix, but they're expected to arrive sometime later this year, and the third season will follow not long after.