‘Karate Kid’ Sequel Heads to YouTube Red in an Effort to Further Kill the Service

YouTube Red is serious about becoming a threat in the streaming industry. So serious that they managed to outbid Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and AMC for Cobra Kai, a half hour comedy series and sequel to the original Karate Kid.

Wasn’t Karate Kid 2 a sequel to the original?

Cobra Kai stars Ralph Macchio and William Zabka, who will reprise their roles as Danny LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence. This answers the age old question, have you seen Ralph Macchio lately? It’s based 30 years after the original movie and the plot features the two opening rival karate schools. It sounds like it’s going to ruin everything great about the original movie, far worse than Jaden Smith.

The real news here might be YouTube Red throwing a lot of money at a series and snatching it from Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and AMC. All four companies have excellent track records when it comes to original programming, so the fact that YouTube Red, an annoying service that pops up every time you go to YouTube, got the deal done is a bit surprising.

YouTube Red launched two years ago and no one cared because Spotify and Apple Music already had a stranglehold on the music streaming game and people didn’t mind waiting five seconds for an ad to play. We’re annoyed every day with auto-play videos on websites, a quick ad isn’t going to stop us from watching a piano playing cat.

YouTube Red has tried to produce original content, but do you know how much good content there is on the other streaming services? Some shitty horror film staring PewDiePie wasn’t selling subscriptions.

And a comedy series sequel to The Karate Kid is unlikely to sell subscriptions either. This seems like an ill-advised move by YouTube Red unless their goal is to pay tribute to their name by going into the red.