It was way back in September of 2007 that we first heard the Will Smith is remaking The Karate Kid with his son rumors. Now they’re confirmed. Variety says that Jaden Smith, last seen by most huddling next to his real life dad Will Smith on the floor of a subway station bathroom in Pursuit of Happyness, will be the new Ralph Macchio.
Columbia Pictures is backing the remake, with Will Smith involved in producing it. The script is being written by Chris Murphy, but what they have right now is mostly just an idea that they want to use karate 10-year-old Jaden a star. They’ll shoot it on location in Beijing and in other cities, lifting pieces of the original plot while almost certainly new ideas. Someone should probably tell them that karate is no longer cool, and if they really want to make this thing revision it should probably be called The Ultimate Fighting Kid. Let Jaden get a little bloody.
So here’s the weird thing in all of this. Ralph Macchio was actually in his twenties when he made the first karate kid back in 1984. In the movie, he played a teenager. Jaden Smith is 10, which makes this remake closer to Karate Babies than Karate Kid. Most 10-year-olds cannot act, let alone pull off karate moves cool enough to engage a modern audience. Neither can most teenagers for that matter, which is I suppose why they cast a 23-year-old Ralph Macchio. I guess they could always CGI in some convincing karate chops. Still, casting a 10-year-old instantly makes this a completely different movie from the original. Maybe that’s for the best, especially since they’ll never replace Pat Morita, and it’ll make it easier for us all to pretend this remake doesn’t exist.
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It was way back in September of 2007 that we first heard the Will Smith is remaking The Karate Kid with his son rumors. Now they’re confirmed. Variety says that Jaden Smith, last seen by most huddling next to his real life dad Will Smith on the floor of a subway station bathroom in Pursuit of Happyness, will be the new Ralph Macchio.
