MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: Terry Silver took over as the main villain of Karate Kid Part III because the John Kreese actor was busy on a TV show.
Karate Kid Part III is an interesting film, in that it is basically geared as the revenge of John Kreese (Martin Kove), the main villain of the first Karate Kid film, the evil sensei from Cobra Kai who had his students "sweep the leg" on Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) in the first film, only for Daniel to win anyways. Then Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) and the other members of Cobra Kai turned on Kreese, leading to the villain trying to choke Johnny out in front of the other students (after first breaking Johnny's second place trophy) before the heroic Mister Miyagi (Pat Morita) saves Johnny and then easily defeats Kreese, as Kreese badly injures his hands while punching through car windows (as Miyagi easily dodges his attacks). So after the second film took Daniel and Mr. Miyagi to Okinawa for a plot involving Miyagi's past (Miyagi being the breakout character of the first film, even nabbing an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, so it made sense to give a spotlight on his past), the third film was meant to be Kreese's revenge for his defeats in the first (and start of the second) movie.
In a lot of ways, then, the third movie is just a repeat of the first movie, as Kreese loses again. The writer of the first three movies, Robert Mark Kamen, famously talked about how he didn't want to do the third movie because it was just a rehash of the first film, but after they turned down his idea for a third movie, he explained why he ultimately returned for the rehash:
[Studio executive] Guy McElwaine, rest his soul, refused to do it [Kamen's original idea for a third movie - BC]. He wouldn’t do it. Jerry [Weintraub] wouldn’t do it. They didn’t want to mess with the franchise and I felt very strongly that doing the same story all over again was f***ing boring so I didn’t do it and they hired somebody else to do a draft. Somebody else could not write Mr. Miyagi and Daniel, couldn’t write them. So Dawn Steel took over the studio from Guy McElwaine and she was a good friend of mine. She said, “How much would it take for you to do what they want to do?” I was very flippant and I threw a number out and she said okay. I didn’t really want to do that one but I ended up doing it because first of all, they appealed to me. They said, “What, do you want somebody to f*ck up Mr. Miyagi? Because we’re going to make the film.” And I said, “Okay, I’ll do it” but I wouldn’t do the fourth one, the one with the girl with Hilary Swank.
But here's the thing - for a movie that is intended to go over the first film's plot and be the revenge of John Kreese, Kreese is BARELY IN THE THIRD MOVIE! The movie opens with a now-destitute Kreese turning to his old Vietnam War buddy, Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith), for help. Silver sends Kreese to Tahiti to rest and recover.
Silver then takes over Cobra Kai and hires a bad ass named Mike Barnes (Sean Kanan) to basically punish Daniel in the next tournament (despite the movie coming out in 1989, it is set just a year after the first film). However, first, Silver manipulates Daniel into joining Cobra Kai after telling him that Kreese was dead and that Silver apologized for Silver's behavior.
As it turned out, though, Kreese's death was faked. It was all part of a plan to just ruin Daniel. Silver, in his over-the-top villainy (the guy is rich from dumping toxic waste, so subtly was not what they were going for with him) explained his plot to Kreese, "So have patience, my friend. I'm just getting everything rolling. When I'm finished with that kid, he'll be begging me to be his teacher! And you know what he's going to learn from me? Pain! In every part of his body! And fear in every part of his mind! And here's the kicker: he's going to thank me for it. ...Johnny, by the time that little twerp steps into the ring to defend his title, I'm going to have him thinking he's invincible. And then, he's going to find out what pain and fear really mean... right in front of a thousand people."
Of course, the amusing thing about it all is that the actor who played Silver was a year YOUNGER than Ralph Maccchio, but whatever, we just have to assume he is Kreese's contemporary.
Anyhow, that's the big question - why was a movie about John Kreese's revenge about a DIFFERENT villain for most of the movie?
As it turned out, Martin Kove was already committed to a network TV series that was filming at the same time as Karate Kid Part III, and since he was the star of the TV series, he couldn't get out of it long enough to play Kreese throughout the movie, so instead, Silver was invented as a Kreese substitute and the faked death idea was developed to explain why Kreese was absent throughout most of the movie.
The TV series only lasted one season. It was called Hard Time on Planet Earth, with Kove playing an alien warrior who was sentenced to live as a human on Earth until he proved that he had done enough good deeds to return to his people (his heroics during an intergalactic war was the only reason he was not just killed for his crimes).
It is too funny to think that a TV show like that led to an entirely new plot for Karate Kid Part III!
The legend is...
STATUS: True
Be sure to check out my archive of Movie Legends Revealed for more urban legends about the world of film. Click here for an earlier Movie Legend about the first Karate Kid movie (and whether Chuck Norris turned down the role of John Kreese).
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