WIRE Buzz: Cobra Kai S3 sneak peek; Texas Chainsaw Massacre cuts directors; The Batman casts Barry Keoghan

The first two seasons of the critical darling and throwback franchise-extender Cobra Kai are heading to the series’ new Netflix home on Aug. 28, which means it’s time for a teaser. What fans might not expect is a look at the third season — which might tease another returning character from The Karate Kid universe.

The grown-ups of the martial arts classics have been having a hard time now that their glory days are gone, but the series (from showrunners Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg) has been exploring their trials in emotional detail 30 years after the original films. The clip below gives a nice recap for series newcomers and provides context for the upcoming season ... but stay until the end for a look at who might be joining the cast for round three.

Take a look:

At the very end there, fans get a little bit of Season 3. Ralph Macchio's Daniel is getting whipped by someone in what looks to be Okinawa — is that Yuji Okumoto’s Chozen Toguchi from The Karate Kid Part II? Hard to say at this point, but there’s plenty of nostalgia and Miyagi secrets on the way for fans when the series returns to Netflix.

Cobra Kai’s third season comes to the streamer in 2021.

Next, the upcoming Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel has started bleeding staff only one week into its production.

According to Deadline, directors Andy and Ryan Tohill have left the film (which is supposed to pick up right after the events of the original Tobe Hooper horror) during their shoot in Bulgaria over "creative differences." David Blue Garcia (Tejano) will be taking over the film for Legendary, and heading to Bulgaria to reshoot everything from scratch, because apparently week one's efforts were utterly misaligned with the studio's desires.

The shocking move is a stumble out of the gate for the would-be franchise reboot, but perhaps this is cutting out a misaligned fit before it could fester. The sequel stars Elsie Fisher, Sarah Yarkin, Jacob Latimore, and Moe Dunford. It does not yet have a release date.

Finally, the big news from The Batman was obviously the trailer and all the eye-shadowed Robert Pattinson that it contained — but there was also a small piece of casting news that might be of key importance to the film.

Slashfilm reports that Eternals actor Barry Keoghan joined the cast of the Matt Reeves film as Officer Stanley Merkel — a character from the comics who served as Commissioner James Gordon’s first partner.

Introduced first in Frank Miller’s Batman Year One (the film looks to center around Batman: Year Two), Merkel could be an important component to the story and to Jeffrey Wright’s take on Gordon. That’s not to mention the HBO Max spin-off series from Reeves that looks to center on Gotham PD, where Keoghan could find fertile ground for corruption and/or heroism, depending on his take on the role.

The rest of The Batman’s incredible cast includes Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano, John Turturro, Peter Sarsgaard, Jayme Lawson, Andy Serkis, and Colin Farrell. The Batman hits theaters on Oct. 1, 2021.