‘Cobra Kai’: How Many Seasons Will the Netflix Show Run For?
Cobra Kai season 3 hit Netflix like a crane kick on Jan. 1. While Karate Kid fans new and old check out these new episodes, the series has already been renewed for Season 4, sure to strike like a surprise leg sweep sometime next year.
But how long is the series planned to run for? It certainly seems to be taking its time building up its characters and themes in a way that few could have expected from a simple Karate Kid follow-up. Well, according to the creators, that slow-burn feel is intentional.
‘Cobra Kai’ could be around for years to come
Cobra Kai showrunners Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg have made it no secret that they have a longer game in mind for the series. This was evident in their recent discussion of certain characters coming and going from the story by design.
In an interview with TV Line, they touched on these plans again and gave fans an idea of how many seasons to expect. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot more than four.
“We have an endgame in our heads,” Heald said. “We’ve had one for quite some time, and it’s not in Season 4. It’s well beyond that. In our minds, we have seasons’ worth of story that is necessary to tell before we get to that endgame. That will be a discussion going forward with our new partners at Netflix. Can we write to that endgame? Can we know that it’s coming?”
Heald continued to explain that in TV production, you can’t always count on getting as many seasons as you need, no matter how successful a series is. For the time being, though, the team continues to write Cobra Kai with the same planned pace in mind heading into Season 4.
“That’s not always the case with television and we respect that,” Heald explained. “For now, we’re continuing to write at the same speed and with the same path that we set out with from the beginning.”
Netflix and other streamers haven’t shown interest in longer series
Cobra Kai has so far been a big hit for Netflix, regularly topping the service’s most-watched chart in the US. Still, all the success in the world doesn’t seem to guarantee anything in the modern streaming landscape, as many fans have become painfully aware.
It’s an open secret these days that streaming platforms like Netflix and others tend not to be interested in renewing shows past three or four seasons. This phenomenon has been blamed on the economic models used by streamers, which see new shows as more likely to draw new subscribers. Older shows, meanwhile, tend to keep a steady fanbase and get more expensive as they go, making them harder to justify renewing.
There can be exceptions to this. Stranger Things is in-production on a fourth season and seems poised to run for as long as it wants. It can likely get away with that because it is one of if not the most popular shows on Netflix, and therefore, one of the most popular in the world. Animated shows with more stable budgets can also stick around for a while, like Big Mouth, which is renewed through Season 6.
