Cobra Kai proved itself to be a fantastic acquisition for Netflix, since the world of Karate Kid landed on the service mid-2020, the show went on to be one of its most streamed properties despite Cobra Kai’s second season already being over one year old at the time.
The true test for Cobra Kai then would be how it fared as a true Netflix exclusive once its third season launched on New Year’s day, right after the company decided to move forward its premiere by a week just for kicks. Prior to that, Cobra Kai had teased a couple of returning actors from Karate Kid 2 would be reprising their roles from that film when Daniel Larusso returned to Okinawa more than 30 years since those events took place.
Well, as it turns out Cobra Kai is every bit the year opener Netflix had hoped for, with Deadline reporting over 41 million households have already gone through season three in these two weeks, according to the company’s official numbers. Not even midway through the month, Netflix can expect Cobra Kai’s ratings only to grow for the rest of January as the show continues to top streaming charts in several countries around the globe, including the U.S. and UK.
When accounting for all three seasons, Netflix estimates that around 73 million households have at least watched a single episode of Cobra Kai, which is slightly over a third of its worldwide subscribers. Netflix has recently begun sharing more data for its shows and how well all their genres fare with different types of audiences all over the world, as their 2020 recap shows.
As far as what Cobra Kai’s third season brings to the table, the show continues to offer viewers more of what has made it such a hit ever since it premiered within the depths of YouTube Red, that is more teen drama, nostalgia, grown-ups behaving like children and some fantastic fight scenes. While season three turns the spotlight even more to the adults’ side, it’s been quite a success with critics and obviously with audiences too considering its high ratings.
All this bodes well for Cobra Kai’s fourth season which was already booked by Netflix and one of the main reasons why it landed on the streaming giant. So far, it seems striking first does land a hard blow when it comes to ratings.
Cobra Kai’s three seasons are available on Netflix.
Source: Deadline