3 Ninjas Star Confirms Reboot Was Pitched To Netflix – “They Decided To Do Cobra Kai Instead”

For over three decades, one of the original 3 Ninjas stars, Max Elliott Slade, said almost nothing publicly about the franchise. He didn’t appear at conventions, and he did no interviews. That changed in the last few weeks when Slade sat down with The Ravens Podcast for the first time ever on-camera and confirmed that a 3 Ninjas reboot has already been pitched to Netflix. “Apparently Netflix was excited about it for a while, but I think what happened was they decided to do Cobra Kai instead,” Slade said. “I don’t know, maybe they thought this was too similar to that.”

Cobra Kai wrapped its six-season Netflix run in February 2025. A month later, Karate Kid: Legends opened to just $21 million at the US box office — proving ’90s martial arts nostalgia works far better on streaming than in cinemas. With the Miyagi-verse now plotting spinoffs, there’s a gap in the market for the next franchise to claim that space. The answer may have been sitting in a Sony vault since 1992.

The 1990s were a very different time when it came to family entertainment. While superhero and animated films remain as popular as they ever were, there was a peculiar movie sub-genre that swept the box office: action or adventure flicks starring a ragtag group of kids. Movies like The Sandlot and The Little Rascals were modest successes that could be used as the perfect example of what this genre was all about. However, one of the most prominent franchises that ticks all the boxes of this genre is the 3 Ninjas saga.

Looking at the success of Netflix’s Cobra Kai (which concluded its six-season run in February 2025), is it time for a 3 Ninjas reboot?

Four Films, One Chaotic Franchise: The 3 Ninjas Story

The first 3 Ninjas came out in 1992. Directed by Jon Turteltaub, the movie follows three kids (Michael Treanor, Max Elliott Slade, and Chad Power) who train in the arts of ninjutsu with their grandfather (Victor Wong). After the kids’ father — who is an FBI agent — gets involved with one of the world’s most dangerous criminal masterminds, it will be up to the boys to stop the evil ninjas that threaten their family, learning the importance of family along the way.

3 Ninjas is a case example of taking all things popular in your generation’s culture and condensing them into a single, easily digestible feature film. You got ninjas — which were huge in the ’80s and ’90s — “rad” kids who use surfer lingo and action flick shenanigans like undercover FBI agents and stolen nuclear warheads.

Like so many action flicks of the time, 3 Ninjas wasn’t particularly successful with critics. Some reviews thought that the movie suffered an “identity crisis,” as it never settled on being either an adventure flick or a straight comedy.

Mixed critical reception notwithstanding, 3 Ninjas somehow managed to spawn three other sequels that spanned the better part of the ’90s. The first of said continuations came in 1994 when 3 Ninjas Kick Back was released. However, as straightforward as they might sound, there’s actually quite a bit of complexity when we talk about the chronology of the 3 Ninjas franchise.

The Sequels Nobody Watched In The Right Order

Kick Back was released as the first sequel to the original film — but it was never meant to be the second film in the series, chronologically speaking. The sequel to the first movie is actually 3 Ninjas Knuckle Up. This flick was shot back-to-back with the first film in the series, and is the only other 3 Ninjas movie that features the original cast. However, due to some distribution shenanigans, Knuckle Up wound up being released in 1995, after what was supposed to be the third entry in the franchise, 3 Ninjas Kick Back.

“We spent two weeks together before filming began doing intensive Taekwondo and gymnastics training,” Slade recalled of preparing with Treanor and Power. “We developed a sort of brotherly chemistry before the cameras ever rolled.”

Asked to compare the 3 Ninjas films, Slade didn’t hesitate: “I don’t want to play favorites, but I feel like there is something kind of special about the first one.” Of the language barrier on Knuckle Up, he added: “Our director didn’t speak English, so that was kind of a shortcoming of it, I guess you would say. And they used stunt doubles a lot more in that one.”

That’s it for the original trilogy. However, things don’t end there for the three ninja brothers, as they would have to join forces one last time in the dreadfully disappointing 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain.

How Hulk Hogan Killed the Franchise Dead

Let’s address the elephant in the room before we move on: High Noon at Mega Mountain might be solely responsible for the demise of the entire 3 Ninjas IP. While none of the movies in the original trilogy could be considered a cinematic masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, the fourth entry in the series took things into a zanier, and undeniably worse, direction.

From the very beginning, High Noon at Mega Mountain appeared destined for failure. Released in 1998, the main appeal of the flick was having Hulk Hogan along with the titular three ninjas. However, by the late 1990s, Hogan’s popularity was already in a steep decline, leaving the film disconnected from the young audience it was targeting in the first place.

Additionally, ninjas, in general, just weren’t considered as cool as they were in the ’80s and early ’90s: gritty sci-fi aesthetics reigned supreme at the turn of the millennium, and there just was no place left for lighthearted films like 3 Ninjas among the young masses.

With an impressive Rotten Tomatoes score of 0%, 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain could be easily considered one of the worst movies ever made. It’s no surprise that, following the massive disaster that was High Noon at Mega Mountain, Sony Pictures finally pulled the plug on the whole franchise, leading the three ninjas to early retirement.

However, as we all know, Hollywood is an industry that thrives on reusing and repackaging ideas. Could we be on the verge of a 3 Ninjas revival? Well, stranger things have happened — literally.

Why 90s Nostalgia Has Never Been Stronger

On July 15, 2016, Netflix released the first season of a new horror show — a series that drew heavy inspiration from some classic Stephen King stories and was filled to the brim with eighties nostalgia. Stranger Things became one of the platform’s most successful original programs, sparking an immediate interest in similar stories.

The following year, in 2017, a reboot of Stephen King’s It was released, becoming one of the most commercially successful horror movies of all time. The movie was clearly inspired by Stranger Things’ success, going as far as casting one of the show’s lead stars in a starring role.

The point is that there’s a renewed interest in Goonies-style adventure films starring a cast of young actors at the moment. Sure, Marvel’s grip on the box office has loosened considerably, and the law of diminishing returns has well and truly set in for the MCU.

Also worth keeping in mind is that, as time moves forward, the nostalgia for earlier decades keeps changing. A few years back, the eighties revival was all the rage, but lately, we’ve seen a renewed interest in the nineties in a ton of different movies and shows. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air revival and the Friends reunion proved that ’90s nostalgia had real commercial pull, and cheesy franchises like 3 Ninjas are no doubt a beloved part of someone’s childhood, which would inevitably lead to some form of reboot or spiritual successor of some sort.

The Cobra Kai Blueprint Is Broken — And That’s 3 Ninjas’ Opportunity

Cobra Kai proved that legacy martial arts IP has a massive streaming audience. But Karate Kid: Legends then showed that the same goodwill doesn’t translate to cinemas. The sweet spot is a platform — and with Cobra Kai now finished and its spinoffs still unannounced, there’s a genuine opening.

Think The Paper Tigers as the blueprint: three brothers who were unstoppable as kids, now middle-aged, out of shape, and barely on speaking terms — reluctantly reuniting after their grandfather’s death to honour his legacy, and discovering the hard way that ninjutsu hits different when your knees are gone. Their own kids are watching. That’s the emotional engine a 3 Ninjas reboot needs, and it’s already built into the original mythology.

It’s Real: Netflix Already Had This Pitch

Slade revealed that Martha Chang, a producer on the original films, developed exactly that kind of follow-up: the three brothers reunited as adults, some with kids of their own, after their grandfather had passed away. “She had a whole story that involved the three of us as adults, and some of us had kids of our own,” Slade said. “I forget what the drama was, but… I think we had to rescue our dads.” The father, an FBI agent in the original films, had apparently been kidnapped — pulling the brothers back into action one more time.

Slade says he was ready to sign on: “I would have been excited to do that.”

The reboot stalled for the most predictable reason possible — his co-stars weren’t interested in returning: “I don’t think they would have been interested,” Slade said of Michael Treanor and Chad Power.

But the pitch got further than fans ever knew. According to Slade, Netflix had it on the table before ultimately passing on it in favour of Cobra Kai — confirming, on the record, exactly the streaming gap this piece has been arguing 3 Ninjas is sitting in. “Apparently Netflix was excited about it for a while, but I think what happened was they decided to do Cobra Kai instead. I don’t know, maybe they thought this was too similar to that.”

Modernizing the 3 Ninjas formula would also be a serious undertaking for any filmmaker who feels up for the task. Back in 1992, movies, especially family flicks, had a distinct lightheartedness that’s almost impossible to emulate nowadays without making it seem overly cheesy. A “modernized” version of the 3 Ninjas would have to be made to comply with kids’ modern expectations, and ninjas still aren’t as cool as they were in the nineties.

The Brotherhood Behind The Chemistry

If a 3 Ninjas reboot ever gets a second look, Slade’s account of how the original bond was built is exactly the kind of texture a modern version would need to recapture. Beyond the two weeks of Taekwondo and gymnastics training, Slade remembers the moment he found out he’d landed the role in the first place: “After reading the scenes, I did a little karate demonstration and one of the producers… stood up out of her chair and pinched my cheeks, and I was like, ‘Okay, I think I made a good impression.'”

He also confirmed the basketball-court fall that’s stuck with fans for over 30 years was mostly his own stunt work: “I’m pretty sure it was all me. Michael had a stunt double for the slam dunk. I remember hitting the concrete. It was asphalt. It was hard.”

Not everything held up under scrutiny, though: “Most of those bicycle shots weren’t us. I’m sorry to spoil the illusion.”

Would He Actually Come Back?

Slade has turned down convention and signing offers for years, and drew a clear line between himself and the role when asked how it feels knowing kids around the world grew up playing as his character: “I also feel kind of a distance from the character. I feel like they’re not really playing as me. They’re playing as Colt. It’s definitely an honor.”

On why he’s stayed away from the fan circuit specifically: “I felt kind of awkward playing the celebrity. I feel like people would have sort of an expectation that I would be sort of cultish, and I kind of want to distance myself from that.”

Financially, at least, there’s no reboot windfall keeping him afloat in the meantime: “I do get residuals to this day. Every once in a while they show up in the mail, and it’s always a pleasant surprise. The checks for 3 Ninjas are quite small. I think the last one I got was like $4 maybe.”

These days, Slade isn’t chasing acting work. After years pursuing music and a string of other jobs, he recently finished a graduate degree: “I spent most of my young adulthood thinking that I was going to be a rock star. I’ve hopped around. I did tech support for several years. I just got a master’s degree six months ago, in anthropology.”

Without a dominant Power Rangers presence or a consistent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise to ride alongside it, the success of a 3 Ninjas reboot sounds dubious at best. However, fringe stories of remakes coming out of nowhere and making a huge splash at the box office are not unheard of. It will just take a lot of talented filmmaking and a whole lot of goodwill to salvage the franchise after the shocking end that High Noon at Mega Mountain brought upon its fans. Let’s just keep Hulk Hogan far away from the 3 Ninjas reboot, and we should be good to go.

One thing’s now certain that wasn’t a month ago: Netflix already looked at this exact pitch and walked away from it once. Whether that changes now that Cobra Kai has nowhere left to go is the only question left.

Tell us: would you still want to see a 3 Ninjas reboot happen, even without the original cast on board? Watch Max Elliott Slade’s full interview on The Ravens Podcast, and let us know in the comments. Other awesome ‘80s and ’90s movies that deserve a reboot: Short Circuit, The Mask, Nightmare on Elm Street and American Ninja. Also, watch the trailer for the original film below.