10 Actors Who Returned To Save Dying Movie Franchises

A very different entry here, with streaming service Youtube Red proving to be the saving grace for this once much loved franchise. The film series looked to have run out of ideas and looked destined to be designated to the scrapheap for good, but thanks to an in joke on a popular sit-com, an unlikely spark was born.

The Pat Morita/Ralph Macchio combo was pivotal for the first three outings, before the franchise took a nosedive for future instalments. 1994's painful The Next Karate Kid was a bomb that put the series on hiatus, until an equally underwhelming effort in 2010 starring Jackie Chan and Will Smith's son looked set to end the franchise for good.

The spark for the reboot of the Karate Kid franchise was a running joke involving William Zabka and his appearances in hit sit-com How I Met Your Mother. Zabka’s appearances was one of the few highlights of the show's last two seasons, his reborn popularity leading YouTube Red to take the risk of him playing the central character in a new series.

With this Cobra Kai was born, and The Karate Kid franchise was alive and kicking once more. The decision to bring back Ralph Macchio alongside Zabka was another great call, with their characters of Daniel and Johnny taking on the role of rival Mojos. It may not have been a traditional path to keep a film franchise alive, but we're sure glad they did!