Cobra Kai Season 7 – Will It Ever Happen?

For six seasons, “Cobra Kai” brought ’80s nostalgia and absurd karate action to YouTube and then to Netflix, only to come to a climactic conclusion earlier this year with the end of “Cobra Kai” season 6. Netflix built up to the proper finale with plenty of fanfare, giving each character a proper send-off (some more explosive than others), and wrapping things up with a series of one-on-one world championship duels for the key characters.

It’s rare in the streaming era that shows get to go out so decisively on their own terms, and yet, the show’s popularity means that many fans are still hoping there could be a chance for “Cobra Kai” season 7. Is there really, though? Well, probably not — at least, not under that name. The showrunners, stars, and Netflix itself have all made it clear that season 6 is the end, but they’ve also talked extensively about the potential for spin-offs or sequels down the line.

One of those is already coming to big screens later this year. “Karate Kid: Legends,” a movie that brings together Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) from the 2010 “Karate Kid” reboot, will premiere on May 30. While that’s technically a different creative team than the one behind “Cobra Kai,” the director has confirmed that the two stories are canonical with one another, and that the film takes place three years after “Cobra Kai” season 6. But perhaps more exciting for fans of the Netflix series are all the theorized streaming successors that could functionally take the place of a “Cobra Kai” season 7.

Officially, “Cobra Kai” is over, and while it seems inevitable that the “Karate Kid” saga will continueit makes sense that we’d see a bit of a pause before the next big project at Netflix. Even if a substantial portion of cast and production team from “Cobra Kai” were to move over to a new series, there would still be changes, which means more time spent in development. Writers rooms would need to be assembled, new actors cast — all the things that have to get done before a show can start production.

In other words, this gap is sure to be larger than what we’ve previously seen between individual “Cobra Kai” seasons. While Netflix definitely would like to keep the fan base that’s been built around the franchise, it takes time to get a whole new show ready to go — especially when the company in question has multiple potential spin-off ideas to choose from, as seems to be the case with “Cobra Kai.”

“Cobra Kai” showrunners Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg have made it very clear that they want to keep working in the “Karate Kid” universe, or the “Miyagi-verse,” as they call it. And it seems that out of all the possible direction the franchise could go, two potential spin-offs are leading the charge. One would be a prequel series starring a young Mr. Miyagiand the other would be a “Cobra Kai” sequel and spin-off starring Hawk (Jacob Bertrand) and Demetri (Gianni DeCenzo).

The showrunner trio discussed the latter idea in an interview with Entertainment Weeklywith Hurwitz teasing that there “may” be “a very thorough document” detailing a Hawk and Demetri “Binary Bros” spin-off. (“Cobra Kai” star Xolo Maridueña has also endorsed the idea.)

As for the potential Miyagi series, there’s plenty of passion from the creative team to get things moving. “I would say that we definitely want to do that and have been talking about that,” Schlossberg said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “As we’re finishing that up, we’ll see exactly what path we take in terms of spin-offs, but it is definitely something that we’ve been wanting to do. It’s just that we want to wait until we get finished with Cobra Kai first before we get into that.”

With the Sekai Taikai over and Cobra Kai back in the hands of Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka), most of the major storylines from “Cobra Kai” have been wrapped up. Johnny will be teaching classes and raising his new kid with Carmen (Vanessa Rubio); Sam (Mary Mouser) and Miguel are going to college; and Robby (Tanner Buchanan) and Tory (Peyton List) have become professional karate competitors and influencers. Both John Kreese (Martin Kove) and Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) are presumably dead after the apparent murder-suicide on Silver’s yachtand Daniel is free of all the high-stakes karate drama, at least for now.

Any show or season that takes place after all that would have to drum up some new storylines. If we do get a show following Demetri and Hawk in college, it would probably look more like the campus episodes of “Cobra Kai” that we’ve already gotten — more comedic writing in the beer bong genre (something Hurwitz, Schlossberg, and Heald are well-versed in), with an occasional bit of karate to keep things interesting. The Miyagi prequel series would be more ambitious, both because it would require all the production trimmings of a full period piece, and because it would likely have a lot more focus on the martial arts.

Jacob Bertrand and Gianni DeCenzo would both need to be at the top of the call sheet for a “Binary Bros” spin-off, while the Miyagi series would require an entirely new cast. Brian Takahashi played a young version of Mr. Miyagi in some dream sequences during “Cobra Kai” season 6, but the show also relied heavily on some pretty reprehensible AI/CGI sorcery to bring original actor Pat Morita “back” in other sequences. It’s unclear whether a new show would continue with Takahashi or bring in someone new.

For any stories set after season 6, “Binary Bros” or otherwise, there’s the potential for cameos. “Cobra Kai” itself has made a tradition of including smaller appearances from past “Karate Kid” actors, so that would be nothing new. It’s unlikely that actors like Xolo Maridueña or Peyton List would have big roles again, as they both have some pretty major projects going elsewhere at this point. But there’s always the possibility for single-episode reprisals, especially among the older “Cobra Kai” actors.

Beyond the projects that seem to be in the works, there are tons of other “Cobra Kai” spin-offs fans would love to see. For now, it’s a “hurry up and wait” game, but it would be shocking if the franchise didn’t return to Netflix in one form or another. It just might not be “Cobra Kai” season 7, exactly.