Karate Kid fans have been begging for Sean Kanan to come onto the Netflix series Cobra Kai, and it's finally happening. The actor, who's currently playing Deacon Sharpe on The Bold and the Beautiful, has been cast to star in season five of the series based on the famous 1980s film franchise.
"So excited to FINALLY announce that Mike Barnes will be a part of season 5!" Kanan shared on social media. "[Executive producers Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg] wrote me an awesome story. Can't wait for you all to see it!"
So excited to FINALLY announce that Mike Barnes will be a part of season 5! @healdrules @jonhurwitz & @McSchlossberg wrote me an awesome story. Can't wait for you all to see it! @ralphmacchio @WilliamZabka @evabasler @BandB_CBS #CobraKaiSeason5 #CobraKai #MikeBarnes #seanKanan pic.twitter.com/Q1hD5gV0Md
— Sean Kanan (@seankanan) August 9, 2022
Cobra Kai follows original The Karate Kid characters Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) decades after their 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament bout. Now middle-aged, the fighters find themselves martial arts rivals again.
According to an official teaser about season five, Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) will begin expanding the Cobra Kai empire and tries to make his "No Mercy" style of karate the only game in town. With Kreese (Martin Kove) behind bars and Johnny setting karate aside to focus on repairing the damage he's caused, Daniel must call on an old friend for help.
Back in February, Kanan spoke with Soap Central about how fun it would be to reprise the role of Mike Barnes for Cobra Kai.
"I would say I probably get about 500 messages a week on social media, people asking if I'm going to do Cobra Kai," he shared. "It has been incredibly flattering that a character that I played in a film 35 years ago still has relevance. The success of Cobra Kai, it's incredible. It's the number two show on Netflix worldwide, and when they moved from YouTube Red to Netflix, it became this worldwide juggernaut, which has kind of happily swept me along a little bit in all the Internet speculation. It's very exciting."
As fans know, Kanan is so attached to the Karate Kid world, the powers that be at B&B even allowed him to bring a little bit of Mike Barnes into the character of Deacon, who's showed off some karate moves since his return to the canvas.
"Annika [Noelle, Hope Logan] has trained in martial arts, and I thought it would be a really interesting opportunity to potentially cross collateralize the two audiences. I said, 'Wouldn't it be fun if we could bring in some of these people who are fans of the Karate Kid/Cobra Kai universe and see if we can actually get them to actually start watching The Bold and the Beautiful?'" he told Soap Central. "And it's amazing because, little by little, it's happening! I've had so many people who are generally contacting me about Karate Kid stuff, and they're like, 'Oh, I can't believe it, dude, I'm starting to watch the soap opera. Who knew Mike Barnes, karate's bad boy, was on a soap!' So, out of novelty and curiosity, some people start watching it, and then they start to find out that they really like it."
Check out a season five teaser trailer of Cobra Kai and let us know how you feel about Sean Kanan reprising his iconic The Karate Kid role of Mike Barnes below.
What do you think about Cobra Kai bringing Sean Kanan's Mike Barnes back into the fold? What do you hope the show's writers have planned for Mike's return? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
