No Mercy: Karate Kid: Legends Takes a Beating at the Box Office

Karate Kid: Legends, the new movie from Sony based on the long-time popular franchise, has bombed big time at the box office.

Estimates had offered around a $35 million opening, but Karate Kid: Legends will be lucky to bring in $21 million for the entire weekend.

That’s at least good enough for #3 at the box office this weekend, but the flick gets clobbered by Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning’s second weekend of $27.3M, and Lilo & Stitch‘s second weekend of $63M.

What happened?

It’s a big disappointment because it follows the popular Cobra Kai series on Netflix. However, except for Ralph Macchio, I believe none of the Cobra Kai creators were involved in Karate Kid: Legends. That was a mistake. Probably the second mistake was not having William Zabka back and star as Johnny Lawrence. He’s the one who made Cobra Kai a big success.

Get this (I haven’t seen the movie myself): They also moved the setting from Californina to NYC. I guess the movie, for some reason, starts off with Joshua Jackson’s (yeah, he’s in the movie) character training some kid to box. Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso doesn’t even appear until like an hour into the film. Karate Kid: Legends is only 90 minutes long. I also think Jackie Chan is barely in it, from what I’ve heard. Did the same bozos that developed the Marvel movies at Sony develop Karate Kid: Legends? Who thought this was a good idea?

Oh, and what is even funnier is the shill trade sites like Deadline are blaming the failure on – get this – the streaming success of Cobra Kai, making the excuse that fans are trained to stay at home and watch. Hilarious. Question: Does Karate Kid: Legends have ANYTHING to do with Cobra Kai? Does anyone besides Daniel appear in the movie? Does his family even appear in the film (honest question, do they)???

Critics and fans divided

What’s pretty interesting is that Karate Kid: Legends has a Rotten Tomatoes Score from the critics of only 59%, yet the fans who were allowed to rate it (Rotten Tomatoes only allows fans who have verified purchases through the Fandango app rate movies), give it a 90% score. That suggests only the hardcore fans showed up. If you read through the more negative fan reviews, you see the complaints are about the lack of screen time and character development. Syncs up with what I heard.

Oh, and in case you didn’t know, yes there is a Karate Kid: Legends post-credit scene, which is apparently the best scene of the movie. Go figure.

Have you seen Karate Kid: Legends? What did you think? Let us know in the comments below.