Dear Gossips, 

For weeks now we’ve been hearing about the movie opening tomorrow and all the stunts that Tom Cruise performs in them. Of course it’s impressive that he’s always out there jumping off planes and whatever but, like, he’s not the only one in this conversation. 

 

If we’re talking about movie stars doing stunts, let us not disrespect JACKIE CHAN who also happens to be promoting a film right now: Karate Kid: Legends opens next week. Ralph Macchio is back, Ben Wang stars as the new protégé, and Jackie is the master, obviously. 

The movie isn’t getting all that much hype, it’s a blockbuster season, there are so many loud releases out there, but Karate Kid: Legends has already opened in Latin American markets and grossed over $11 million so it’ll be interesting to how it performs in other territories and whether or not the popularity of Cobra Kai will help its box office. 

 

Back to Jackie though, who’s been on the press tour this week in the UK, he’s now 71 years old and in January just wrapped on his latest project, The Shadow’s Edge. Currently in post-production, the film announced international sales deals a couple of weeks ago on the strength of Jackie’s second collaboration with director Larry Yang after their 2023 hit Ride On and also because the cast includes K-pop star Jun from the band Seventeen with whom Jackie shares at least one fight scene that went viral this week after the trailer was played at the China Film Fair. 

 

Happy for Jun of course that he’s fulfilling his dream of acting opposite Jackie Chan but can we please not sleep on the fact that Jackie Chan is in his 70s now and he only knows how to do stunts one way, by HIMSELF, and he’s been doing this literally for 50 F-CKING YEARS! If you are not familiar with his particular brand of batsh-t crazy, please watch this five minute video. 

 

 

Last month the Oscars announced that they’d established a new category for stunt design and the first award will be presented in 2028 for films released in 2027. When Sarah wrote about it she wondered if it would be Tom Cruise to present it. I mean I get it… but shouldn’t Jackie Chan also be involved in some way? 

Yours in gossip, 

Lainey