In the final minutes of the Cobra Kai series finale, the action moves to a Los Angeles sushi restaurant with real-life Cobra Kai creators Jon Hurwitz and Josh Heald seated at the bar. “The show would be set in Hill Valley, alternate 1985,” says Hurwitz. “All we need are Wilson, Thompson, and Zane, and we got the green light.”
For those of you who don’t speak fluent nerd, Hurwitz is talking about a Back to the Future show taking place in the alternative, dystopian Hill Valley we saw in Back to the Future II. The actors he’s referencing are Thomas F. Wilson (Biff), Lea Thompson (Lorraine Baines McFly) and Bill Zane (Match, a member of Biff’s gang).
“Bill’s a friend,” says Heald in the scene. “The guy did an art piece for my foyer. It’s an easy call to make. I feel like why not get Crispin, too. Maybe Mike to direct? We can blow this thing up.”
To unpack this part, Billy Zane is indeed an artist; the Crispin in question is Crispin Glover, who played George McFly in the original Back to the Future; and Mike is, of course, Marty McFly himself, Michael J. Fox. He’s retired from acting due to long-term health issues resulting from Parkinson’s disease, but he could theoretically still direct. (Why neither of them referenced Christopher “Doc” Lloyd is a mystery. He’d likely be the focal point of such a show.)
We recently sat down with the Cobra Kai creative team to talk about the end of the show, and we couldn’t resist asking about this very large Back to the Future Easter egg they placed shortly before the end credits roll. Heald says it all started after the show’s third co-creator, Hayden Schlossberg, “had his fun turn” in the middle episodes of this final season playing Terry Silver’s attorney. “Jon and I really felt like, ‘Well, we should probably pop in here somewhere just to have fun,’” he says.
They wanted to find a way to shoot their Hitchcock moments that felt organic within the universe of Cobra Kai. “It wouldn’t make sense for two writers to be talking about a Karate Kid reboot,” says Heald. “So these characters, which are a real stretch for us, are talking about another movie that we have such love for, the Back to the Future universe.”
When Heald, Hurwitz, and Schlossberg first started playing around with their idea for Cobra Kai, there wasn’t really a Karate Kid universe to speak of. There were merely four movies from the Eighties and Nineties, which met varying degrees of success, about karate in the Valley, a wise sensei who died 2005, and a group of teenagers who were now in their fifties. But under the trio’s brilliant stewardship, a rich, vibrant, Karate Kid world blossomed on Netflix.
Back to the Future, however, has three universally beloved movies, a significantly larger group of hardcore fans who continue to gather at conventions, multiple timelines to explore, and a story that’s just screaming for an updated chapter. (What happened to Doc, Clara, and their sons, Jules and Verne, after their locomotive time machine disappeared into the sky? Did Jennifer and Marty stay together and have the family we saw in the second movie? Does 1985 Biff find a way to fuck with the timeline after seeing the DeLorean take flight?)
Unfortunately, odds are low we’ll ever be able to see any of these questions answered. Back to the Future director Robert Zemeckis and screenwriter Bob Gale have resisted all overtures to make another Back to the Future movie over the years. In fact, it’s become somewhat of a touchy subject. “People always say, ‘When are you going to do Back to the Future 4?’” Gale said recently. “And we say, ‘Fuck you.’” He didn’t comment on a possible Back to the Future TV show, but that idea would likely be met with a similarly angry response. Simply put, the Bobs feel they wrapped up the story perfectly and don’t want to damage the legacy. That doesn’t mean the Cobra Kai guys are ready to give up, though.
“We know this is a pipe dream that will likely never happen because the Bobs of that universe are intent to let sleeping dogs lie,” says Heald. “But, you know what? You never know. And we couldn’t help ourselves.”
The stars nearly aligned at the recent Saturn Awards, the annual gala of the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, where Cobra Kai won for Best Action and Thriller series. “Right before our award was this award for Back to the Future,” Heald says. “Christopher Lloyd, Bob Gale, and Leah Thompson were onstage accepting right before us, and we were just chomping at the bit to try to cross paths with them.”
Somehow, it didn’t happen, but these three are nothing if not persistent. “We have so many ideas for [a Back to the Future show],” says Heald. “If they would let us a little bit loose, we promise to deliver. We honor our heroes wishes, but we reserve the right to try to change their minds.”
From Rolling Stone US
