Karate Kid sequel in the works

Following a $56 million opening weekend for The Karate Kid (it doubled The A-Team‘s $25.7 million) Columbia Pictures are meeting with writers to pitch their ideas on where to take the sequel.

The Karate Kid, which has also been getting positive reviews, only cost $40 million to make so it wouldn’t have taken much to makes its money back, but to make it back in such a way during it’s opening weekend makes it one of the first box office surprises of 2010.

MTV caught up with director Harald Zwart who commented on the film’s success, and said he was interested in directing the sequel if Sony want him back (I can’t imagine why not):

“It far exceeded my expectations,” director Harald Zwart told MTV News of the film’s success. “I’m from Scandinavia and we are in no habit of letting our dreams get the better half of us. We keep our feet on the ground and wait until we see the reality, and this time it just really exceeded what I had hoped for. It was just amazing!”

With “The Karate Kid” having established itself as a box office hit, there’s already talk of a possible sequel. Zwart said that while another installment has been discussed, he and his team have only loosely tossed around the idea up until now — so as to avoid jinxing anything.

“Every now and then we discussed it,” he said. “But the truth is, when you see Jackie and Jaden, they’re like a really good film couple. On and off camera, I was watching how they were pulling practical jokes on each other and throwing rocks in the lake, and you just want to keep looking at them because they have a great dynamic and great humor. We have just been playing with a few different ideas, but we haven’t landed on anything at the moment.”

Zwart, speaking only for himself he said, would like to see another “Karate Kid” film explore an all-new story rather than follow in the cinematic footsteps of the ’84 flick’s two sequels. “I personally think it’s now so much on its own two feet, given the success, that it would be interesting to see where we could take it without ever thinking about the old ones.”

Will Smith took a break from making movies to produce his son’s first big screen outing, and it seems to have paid off. Will recently signed up for Men in Black 3 so he won’t be able to give the sequel 100% of his attention, but I’m sure he’ll be heavily involved again.

Did you see The Karate Kid this weekend? Where do you want them to go with the sequel?