The Big Picture

Cobra Kai creators Jon Hurwitz, Josh Heald, and Hayden Schlossberg have a new Netflix series called Obliterated. The show follows an elite special forces team that parties a little too hard in Las Vegas and must go on a mission intoxicated, hangry, and feeling the pressure of being responsible for countless lives in Vegas. During an interview with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff, Hurwitz, Heald, and Schlossberg discuss their experience making a very wild and raunchy Netflix show with no limits.

Given the monumental success of Cobra Kai, it’s easy to forget that Jon Hurwitz, Josh Heald, and Hayden Schlossberg got their starts in the R-rated comedy realm, namely with films in the Harold & Kumar, American Pie, and Hot Tub Time Machine series. After five seasons of the wildly charming and family-friendly Karate Kid show, with one more on the way, the trio are returning to raunchy drug and alcohol-fueled debauchery with their new project, Obliterated.

The new Netflix series focuses on an elite special forces team that thinks its thwarted a deadly threat to Las Vegas. What does one do after completing a difficult and dangerous mission in Sin City? Party of course, and the team goes big in that respect. Trouble is, the bomb they deactivated turns out to be a fake and now they’ve got to get back to work while intoxicated, hangry, and feeling the pressure of being responsible for countless lives in Vegas.

While that synopsis likely tees up how things could get wild in Obliterated, there’s no way to fully convey how big Hurwitz, Heald, and Schlossberg swing with this one. For instance, it only takes a single episode for C. Thomas Howell’s character, the eccentric bomb tech Hagerty, to show himself to the world. During an interview with the trio celebrating the show’s November 30th release, Hurwitz walked me through what it traditionally costs to make something like that happen and why they wound up going a different route:

“C. Thomas Howell, who you get to see quite a bit of in the first episode of the show, it’s the morning of, he’s supposed to be filming that day, and we had spent $10,000 on a prosthetic for him to wear in his nether regions. He calls me that morning and he’s like, ‘You know what? If I’m going for it, I should just go for it, right? I want to go for it. I don’t need the prosthetic. I’ll go all in.’ I was like, ‘That’s great news. This is amazing. Ponyboy is gonna go full frontal on our show? Okay, here we go!’”

That right there is just one example of Hurwitz, Schlossberg, Heald and the rest of team Obliterated not holding back when bringing this story to screen. To hear more about Netflix’s no-limits approach to supporting this series, watch my conversation with Hurwitz, Schlossberg and Heald in the video at the top of this article, or you can read our interview below, which also includes a Cobra Kai Season 6 tease!

PERRI NEMIROFF: If each of you got the opportunity to have a drink with one of these characters, who would be at the top of the list, the one you’d most want to have a drink with? But then I also want to know the opposite. Who would be at the bottom?

HAYDEN SCHLOSSBERG: I would want to have a drink with Hagerty because I know …

That’s the wrong answer! That’s the least safe answer! [Laughs]

JOSH HEALD: [Laughs] You’ve met Hayden before.

SCHLOSSBERG: I have no qualms just getting straight to it and being like, “Let’s have a crazy time right now.” I mean, you’re saying a drink? Just a drink is fine with Hagerty.

God knows what’s in that drink, though.

SCHLOSSBERG: You know what? You just scared me. [Laughs]

JON HURWITZ: I would say Trunk. He’s just so much fun and I always like to get Taco Bell after a night of drinking, and I know he’s up for that, so I think Trunk and I are kindred spirits in that way.

Who’s at the bottom of the list for you?

HURWITZ: Oh, bottom of the list? It’s got to be Paul, unfortunately, just because he doesn’t drink. Only because he doesn’t drink. I love me some Paul, but he’s not the most fun at least at the beginning of the season.

HEALD: I was putting Paul, actually, at the top of my list because I want to give Paul a drink and walk him through the experience of enjoying it. He’s a character that the more you go into the season, I find myself connecting more and more to in a weird way. His stakes actually have very simple, human emotion of wanting to be protective. At the bottom of my list? Probably Hagerty. I’m probably the opposite. I’m scared of what’s in that drink.

Gomez is at the top of my list because I feel like it’s a fair balance between responsibility and fun, and then the bottom of the list has to be Hagerty because you can’t trust him.

SCHLOSSBERG: But at least you’ll come out of it with a story. You may not remember the story, though.

Image via Netflix

Of all of the crazy things you do in the show, is there anything that Netflix said no to that you wanted to do? And if that didn’t happen, what thing that we do actually see in the show were you most worried that they would say, “You’re pushing it too far with this?”

HEALD: I will start by saying Netflix, not only did they not say no, they challenged us to make them uncomfortable and to go for it, in their words. When we pitched the concept, our executives there are incredible, and they totally appreciated the tone that we were going for. When they first saw the first day of dailies, they saw our vision even more as it started to be reflected on screen. As the scripts came in, there wasn’t that, “Are you sure you want to do this?” It was, “Oh my god, I can’t believe you’re going to do that.” And then it was just firmly on us to be comfortable with our own decisions. [Laughs] I wouldn’t say we’re regretting any of them, but there’s additional footage for some of these moments that we could have been even more – not “even more” because I don’t think we were frankly gratuitous, but it could have gone to a gratuitous place versus a shocking place.

I have so many follow-up questions, but I wanna make sure I squeeze this in first. I heard about a really expensive prosthetic that you were planning to use but then the actor did not want to use that prosthetic. Can you walk me through what happened there?

HURWITZ: So, C. Thomas Howell, who you get to see quite a bit of in the first episode of the show, it’s the morning of, he’s supposed to be filming that day, and we had spent $10,000 on a prosthetic for him to wear in his nether regions. He calls me that morning and he’s like, “You know what? If I’m going for it, I should just go for it, right? I want to go for it. I don’t need the prosthetic. I’ll go all in.” I was like, “That’s great news. This is amazing. Ponyboy is gonna go full frontal on our show? Okay, here we go!”

HEALD: That qualifies as great news. [Laughs]

SCHLOSSBERG: We’re like, “Yeah!” [High-fives Hurwitz.]

HURWITZ: I’ll just say this, we like big audience reactions and were like, this is something that people would be talking about. It’s really fun. So, I’m tasked with calling the studio and saying to them, “Okay, I know that he went through the discussions with the intimacy coordinator and he signed a rider and he was planning to wear this thing, but he doesn’t want to wear it. He says, ‘I’m not gonna wear this.’” So there was this mad scramble for them to wake up the lawyers, make sure that they adjust things in there so that he could sign a new nudity waiver that day and give some permission to go. Tommy was willing to go for it across the board and so was the whole cast, which is what made this experience so much fun.

You feel it when you’re watching this.

Image via Netflix

I feel like there’s no good transition away from that point into something else, but you guys know I’m obsessed with Cobra Kai so one question I had about that – did you ever consider including any other actors from Cobra Kai in the Obliterated ensemble?

SCHLOSSBERG: It’s like you want to keep your kids away from the drugs and the alcohol. [Laughs] Cobra Kai is a show where every episode has morals at its core, and Obliterated is a show that’s all about a lack of morals and a wild, risque time. And so, there was something icky about having one of our Cobra Kai actors in this world. There are a couple …

HURWITZ: There is an Easter egg on the show that you may have missed, that one of our series regulars actually appears in Obliterated.

I know who this is because I have another question about her! This is one of my favorite crossover elements because I was reading that Courtney [Henggeler] shadowed one of your directors here. Does that mean that at some point in the future maybe she could direct an episode of Cobra Kai Season 6 or even Obliterated Season 2?

HURWITZ: We love the idea of Courtney directing for us. We’re not sure yet who’s gonna be directing in Season 6 of Cobra Kai, but she’s definitely an up-and-comer on that side of the camera. She’s very, very smart, very into story, and she’s somebody who would make an amazing director, and it was awesome to have her shadowing and appearing in a quick little moment of Obliterated.

SCHLOSSBERG: Courtney is also so funny off the set of Cobra Kai. She is the one actor that we were like, “Okay, she could maybe be in this dirty, risque world.”

Image via Netflix

Now you know I’m gonna try to squeeze in a question or two about Cobra Kai Season 6. At this point, are you basically ready to go? Is it just a matter of things in the industry smoothing out and then it’s go-time, go into production?

HEALD: We were basically ready to go when the writers’ strike began. That was our scheduled day one of production. The writers’ strike went on longer than any of us ever thought it would, and obviously, the actors’ strike is prolonging as well. Fingers crossed, at any moment now, maybe by the time these words are reaching people’s ears, it could be over. For the three of us who share a hive mind and never stop thinking and talking, it did give our minds a place to marinate and come back into the writer’s room as soon as the writer’s strike was over with more ideas, more depth in terms of where we were already going. The room is just running on all cylinders right now. As long as the actors’ strike ends, we will be back in production after the new year.

I like to hear it. I’m hoping for it.

I saved my question that’s probably pushing it too far for last so they can kick me out right after. With Cobra Kai Season 6 being the end, what kind of closure can you tease for the show, and if it’s not closure, are you going to leave the door open for some spinoff series which I know have been talked about in the past?

HURWITZ: We will never give actual closure when it comes to anything. We love working in the Cobra Kai universe, so there’s always potential to revisit that world. We’re certainly thinking about other ideas within the Miyagi-verse, and it’s only a matter of time before we figure out exactly which direction we’re gonna head. But this season, people should be gearing up for. We’re really excited about Cobra Kai Season 6. We’re gonna go out with a bang, and it’s gonna be an amazing experience for fans of the franchise.

Obliterated Obliterated tells the story of an elite special forces team who thwarts a deadly threat to Las Vegas. After their celebratory party, filled with booze, drugs and sex, the team discovers that the bomb they deactivated was a fake. The now intoxicated team has to fight through their impairments, overcome their personal issues, find the real bomb, and save the world. Release Date November 30, 2023 Cast Nick Zano, Shelley Hennig, Kimi Rutledge, C. Thomas Howell Seasons 1 Streaming Service(s) Netflix Showrunner Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, Josh Heald

Watch Here