Sony’s New 'Karate Kid' Movie Adds Joshua Jackson, Sadie Stanley, And Ming-Na Wen
The trio join the already-announced Ralph Macchio, Jackie Chan, and lead Ben Wang
Sony’s franchise-unifying The Karate Kid movie has fetched for their dogi and are assembling quite the cast as their spring shoot begins. Joshua Jackson, Sadie Stanley, and Ming-Na Wen have been added to the film starring American Born Chinese star Ben Wang, as well as Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio, reprising their roles as Mr. Han and Daniel LaRusso, reprising their roles from what was previously believed to be different versions of the story, but are now just different instances.
For Jackson, known for starring in television series like Dawson’s Creek, Fringe, The Affair, the first season of Peacock’s Dr. Death anthology series, and Paramount+’s Fatal Attraction series, this will be his first film role in just under a decade, since the Toronto International Film Festival entry Sky. His breakthrough film role was as Charlie Conway in the The Mighty Ducks trilogy and would be the film student and classmate of Randy who he incorrectly corrects quoting Ellen Ripley in Aliens in Scream 2. He will be playing dad to Sadie Stanley’s character, who will be the love interest to Wang’s character, who at announcement was named Li Fong.
Stanley’s career began as the title character in the 2019 live-action Kim Possible TV movie on Disney Channel, before picking up a recurring role as Brea on her co-star Sean Giambrone’s long-running sitcom The Goldbergs, appearing in 36 episodes across the show’s final four seasons. She starred in the Netflix film The Sleepover and alongside Ray Romano in his directorial debut, Somewhere in Queens. Most recently, she was a lead in the second and ultimately final season of Freeform’s teen mystery drama anthology Cruel Summer. Ming-Na Wen is known as the voice of Disney’s Mulan for all non-singing sequences, and for her roles in The Joy Luck Club, Stargate Universe, and Hacks, as Fennec Shand in the Star Wars universe, Melinda May on Agents of SHIELD, and recurring roles in Eureka, Phineas and Ferb, and Milo Murphy’s Law. Announcing their respective casting on their socials, Stanley posted on Instagram “Grew up watching this franchise- this is v v cool !!✨”, while Wen tweeted “I am excited to join the cast for in the new #KarateKid film!! Can't wait to "wax on, wax off!" ! 🥋👏🏼❤️” tagging the studio, Macchio and Chan.
Li Fong is a Chinese teen who moves to the United States East Coast, where he finds strength and direction through martial arts and a tough but wise mentor or two. No other plot details have been revealed, mostly still under wraps. The film is written by Rob Lieber, whose credits include Sony’s Peter Rabbit and Disney’s 2014 Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day. It is directed by Jonathan Entwistle, the man whose past work includes I’m Not Okay with This and The End of the F***ing World and, it should be reiterated, is supposed to be shepherding the new phase of the Power Rangers franchise.
The film is still set for a December 13 release this year. If it’s kept, it will open alongside The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, running up against the releases of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Mufasa: The Lion King the following week.
Sources: The Hollywood Reporter (1, 2), Variety, Sadie Stanley, Ming-Na Wen