In Cobra Kai, set decades after the original film, Daniel has become the owner of LaRusso Auto, the most profitable car dealership in the Valley, and has two children, Samantha and Anthony, with his wife Amanda.

Whilst Daniel is generally content, despite the death of Miyagi, he becomes paranoid when Cobra Kai is reopened at the hands of Johnny and opens a new dojo called Miyagi-Do.

He said that producer Jerry Weintraub had seen a news article about a nine-year-old who was being repeatedly bullied and started to attend karate classes where he was trained by mentor similar to Miyagi.

[2] Several actors were considered for the title role of Daniel in September 1983, including Robert Downey Jr, Emilio Estevez, Nicolas Cage, Anthony Edwards and Eric Stoltz.

After showing him some blocking and punching moves, Kamen realised that Macchio knew nothing about martial arts, but this suited the character as he wanted him to be characterised as the "paradigmatic wimp".

Macchio found a particular ease and a natural chemistry working with Morita and learned about aspects of Japanese-American culture from him, including using the hachimaki during training.

When executive producers Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg and Josh Heald pitched the concept for Cobra Kai, Macchio said that he was interested in their story development as they were fans of the film series, but described it as a "faith jump" to return to the character.

"[7] After wrapping filming on the final season of Cobra Kai, Macchio went straight into the production of Karate Kid: Legends (2025), feeling the necessity of carrying the emotion of what Daniel's mentor Mr. Miyagi meant to him and "paying it forward".

[8] Seventeen-year-old Daniel LaRusso moves with his mother Lucille from Newark, New Jersey to Reseda, California after she accepts a job offer at a computer firm.

[11] 33 years later, Daniel is the owner of a successful car dealership in Southern California and is married to Amanda, with whom they have two children named Samantha "Sam" and Anthony.

In Cobra Kai, Macchio noted the similarities between Daniel and rival Johnny Lawrence, commenting that they are both good guys but the story explores the nuances of their characters.

As Mr. Miyagi is a father figure to Daniel, he feels a deep responsibility to honour him and prevent the violence that he experienced in his youth from coming back to the San Fernando Valley, and this motivates him to get Cobra Kai closed down.

The next day, Mr. Miyagi confronts Cobra Kai sensei John Kreese and proposes that Daniel and Johnny settle their feud in the upcoming All Valley Karate Championships tournament on December 19, 1984.

Surprised, Mr. Miyagi asks what happened, and Daniel angrily blames Ali for the damage and says that they broke up because she fell in love with "a football player from UCLA".

As a result, Sato lets go of his decades-old grudge with Mr. Miyagi and he offers to rebuild the village, disowning his nephew for refusing to help Daniel rescue a little girl from the typhoon.

Daniel is confronted by the prodigious and undefeated karateka Mike Barnes, who threatens him into defending his title and steals the shop's bonsai trees.

Daniel is unaware that this is an elaborate scheme devised by Kreese and Cobra Kai to exact revenge on him by physically weakening him into defeat at Barnes' hands.

He uses Silver and Kreese's tactic of scoring a point, then losing it with an illegal move (nearly getting disqualified in the process) until they reach the sudden death round.

Johnny's estranged son, Robby Keene, gets a job at LaRusso Auto Group to get back at his father for neglecting him in favor of Miguel.

Without Johnny's knowledge, a small group of Cobra Kai students vandalize Daniel's dojo and his prized convertible and steal Mr. Miyagi's Medal of Honor.

Daniel's own students use both styles of karate with success, so he agrees to team up with Johnny to defeat Cobra Kai during the final matches of both the boys and girls tournaments.

Silver secretly bribed the referee to rig the final match and frame Kreese for attempting to murder Stingray and takes control of Cobra Kai.

Daniel, Johnny, Chozen, and Amanda attempt to convince the committee that Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang are the better choice, culminating in both sides being invited in.

Daniel's students break into Cobra Kai with Tory's help to steal security footage of Silver's attack on Stingray and upload it to the dojo's YouTube channel.

[17] Chan reprises his role as Mr Han from the 2010 reboot and enlists the help of Daniel to train Li Fong, played by Ben Wang.

[19] In June 2010, Macchio appeared in Funny or Die's online short, "Wax On, F*ck Off", in which his loved ones stage an intervention to turn the former child star from a well-adjusted family man into an addict besieged with tabloid scandal in order to help his career with references to The Karate Kid.

[24] Daniel LaRusso appears in a side-scrolling fighting game titled Cobra Kai: The Karate Kid Saga Continues, which was published by GameMill Entertainment on October, 27, 2020.

[25] The Karate Kid musical was announced to be in development for Broadway in January 2020, with Kamen working alongside songwriter Drew Gasparini and director Amon Miyamoto.

[30] Den of Geek writer Gene Ching commented that The Karate Kid introduced martial arts into family entertainment and transformed Daniel and Mr. Miyagi into "crane-kicking icons".

[32] Daniel's competition winning crane kick to Johnny Lawrence's face in the finale of The Karate Kid has been the subject of longstanding media debate about whether the move was illegal and he should have been disqualified.