Cobra Kai season 6 may take quite some time to complete if it gets renewed. The series, which is a sequel to the original Karate Kid films, follows the complicated relationship between Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka), now adults with much more complex lives than when they first met as teens. The show premiered in 2018 on YouTube Red before Netflix picked up the series, going on to produce seasons 4 and 5. Season 5, which just dropped on the streaming service on September 9, has claimed the number one slot on the Netflix charts for two weeks in a row, even beating out Fate: The Winx Saga season 2, which was this week's new premiere.
Cobra Kai was created by Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg, the latter two of whom made a name for themselves with their scripts for the hit 2004 comedy Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and its two sequels. Considering the show's mega-popularity on Netflix, the trio has continued to work together and have their eyes on multiple new projects. This includes their upcoming action-comedy Netflix series Obliterated, which will follow a special forces team on a mission in Las Vegas. That show is currently two months into production, and the creators are also currently in development on the Ferris Bueller spinoff film Sam and Victor’s Day Off.
Deadline recently sat down with Heald, Hurwitz, and Schlossberg to discuss their success with Cobra Kai. During the conversation, they talked through all their upcoming projects and how they might affect the future of their Karate Kid series. Hurwitz acknowledged that they still haven't officially been renewed for season 6, and that if they are "there may be a little bit more of a wait potentially" because of their involvement in so many additional projects. Read his full quote below:
We’re still working all that out with Sony and Netflix, and we don’t have an official Season 6 to announce yet. What we can say is that we’re constantly thinking about these characters. We are working on Obliterated right now for Sony and Netflix. We’re in our second month of production on that, and I think it’s going to blow people’s minds. But we’re hopeful that there’s going to be more Cobra Kai on the horizon. There may be a little bit more of a wait potentially, just because we are in the midst of working on that other show, but it won’t be far behind, assuming everything goes as we’re expecting.
When Could Cobra Kai Season 6 Come Out?
It seems incredibly unlikely that Netflix would cancel a show that is performing so well for them, so a delayed Cobra Kai season 6 seems like what is in the cards. Netflix's previous seasons of the series have had rather scattershot releases, but both seasons 4 and 5 have dropped in the last four months of the year. If season 6 continued that trend, it would likely come out around October or November 2023. However, with the renewal status still unconfirmed, it would probably be delayed by at least six months, placing it at a Summer 2023 release.
However, there is also the matter of Sony's upcoming Karate Kid reboot movie. While it will not be related to Cobra Kai, the show's next season will still want to steer clear of the film's June 7, 2024 release date in order to prevent two Karate Kid projects from competing with one another. If season 6 is delayed enough to cause issues with scheduling around the film, there's the potential that it could be delayed even more, in order to give that release time to breathe, potentially landing it at a late 2024 release.
Source: Deadline