Big news for YouTube’s Karate Kid sequel series Cobra Kai: It’s getting called up to the major leagues—or whatever the equivalent metaphor is for martial arts competitions. Regionals? The Olympics? Some kind of Mortal Kombat-style fight to the death on an evil sorcerer’s weird island? Either way, The Hollywood Reporter says that Cobra Kai is leaving YouTube in favor of the greener pastures of Netflix, with its first two seasons landing at their new home later this year and the third coming “at a date to be determined”—i.e., maybe not this year.
However, rather than another example of Netflix cruelly ripping away a competing streaming platform’s main attraction (like when it got Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee off of Crackle), this is actually what YouTube wanted. THR explains that the video site has given up on its plans to create original scripted streaming content, choosing instead to focus on its strengths as an “ad-supported platform,” and Cobra Kai was the last of YouTube’s remaining originals.
The series stars William Zabka as the new head of the eponymous bad guy karate dojo, reprising his role from the Karate Kid movies, with Ralph Macchio also returning as the guy who was once the eponymous karate kid. Lots of eponymous stuff happening in this universe.
