With how fondly remembered the original Karate Kid trilogy has been, it was a difficult act for the remake; which moved the action from the US to China, and starred newcomer Jaden Smith and action legend Jackie Chan (Rush Hour); to follow, but from a budget of only $40m it managed to make over $300m, was extremely well regarded, and so a sequel was inevitable. Now work on the sequel is moving on, and the studio have just hired a new writer to pen the script.
Cyrus Voris and Ethan Reiff (the pair behind Kung-Fu Panda) wrote the original draft for The Karate Kid 2, but now Zak Penn (The Incredible Hulk) has been drafted in to write the next take on the franchise which, reversing the formula of the original movies, could take Jaden’s Dre from China to the US, in the film which will once again see Will Smith producing, will likely bring Jackie Chan back, but is once again unlikely to have anything to do with Karate (as Dre learned Kung-Fu in the first movie), when it makes its, as yet unannounced, release date.
Matt Wheeldon.
Source: Variety.
