In 2018 Netflix announced that they were developing a live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender series. The original animated series has been streaming on Netflix for a few years now, and its popularity has seemed to not burn out. New fans have found the series, binged it, and have fallen in love with it, while fans like myself have rewatched the series for the second, or in my case, a fifth time. The series, which aired from 2005-2008, is one of Nickelodeon’s most popular shows of all-time, and to this day remains just as popular as it was during the show’s height. I can remember being a 7-8 year-old kid when it first came out, and it was the first show that I ever loved. Every week I’d watch the latest episode and I was just capsulated by the show’s greatness. It deals with dark elements, while also being lighthearted. It’s what fully got me into being an avid superhero fan and opened my eyes to a new genre of stories, such as in comic books.
In 2018 when the live-action series was announced, a lot of fans were immediately piqued. They were also a little worried, and for good reason: M. Night Shyamalan directed a legendarily terrible live-action film adaptation of the first season of the series back in 2010. But there are still plenty of ways for a live-action version of this story to be good, and at least now Netflix has an idea of what not to do. Here's everything we know about Netflix's live-action Avatar series so far.
Image via: Variety
Due to the pandemic, production couldn’t begin in 2019 as originally planned. Hopefully the delays gave them more time to perfect the show! Fans can officially get excited though, because Variety reported earlier in the week that the series is now in production, and just a few hours later, show runner Albert Kim revealed on social media that the series has started filming. If I had to guess, the show could possibly premiere in late 2022.
So far the cast consists of:
Aang: Grodon Cormier
Katara: Kiawentiio
Sokka: Ian Ousley
Zuko: Dallas Liu
Iroh: Paul Sun-Hyung Lee
Firelord Ozai: Daniel Dae Kim
Gyasto: Kay Siu Lim
Commander Zhao: Ken Leung
Toph and Azula will surely be announced in no time. It’s probably less likely for Toph, considering that she doesn’t make her first appearance until the second season of the animated series, but it’s possible that some characters could appear sooner than they originally did. If so, I’d want to see Azula asap. Maybe not in a major role until season two, but she should have some sort of presence in season one.
Other characters that could be announced shortly are: Suki, Jet, Pipsqueak, The Duke, Smellerbee and Longshot. It’ll be interesting to see how they handle the Freedom Fighters, especially because I believe that they’ll change some things up from the original series. Could The Duke and Pipsqueak join “Team Avatar” sooner than midway through season three? Will Jet’s antihero persona be revealed sooner rather than later? And will we really not see Suki for a majority of the series after meeting her, only for her to be slightly overrated due the fact that we barely saw her? Yes! Clearly I am not a fan of how the original series tackled Suki. She had so much potential, only to be wasted away for an entire season, and when we saw her again… She was seemingly non-existent.
Image via: ComicBook Resources
As far as we know, the Netflix series will follow the original series’ story. The Nickelodeon show was set in the fictional world of the Four Nations, each corresponding to a certain classical element, and each home to "benders," those who could psychokinetically manipulate one of those elements using martial arts. Only the Avatar, a reincarnated human, could master all four elements and keep the balance of the world. 100 years before the series begins, the Fire Nation attacked the other three nations, subduing the Air Nomads and one of the Water Tribes, and began a decades-long war after the Avatar vanished. In the first episode, waterbender Katara and her brother Sokka discover the missing Avatar, the only surviving airbender named Aang, in suspended animation in an iceberg, and help him on his journey to learn the rest of the elements and to defeat the Firelord.
The original series was separated into three seasons, or "books," of 20 episodes a piece which were around 20-minutes long. The show may follow this format, releasing three seasons that follow the events of the original, maybe with longer episodes and skipping over the weaker one-shots such as the weakest episode of the series, "The Great Divide.” I’d follow this mode and maybe do 12 episodes which are around an hour long. 20 episodes at 20 minutes a piece adds up to 400 minutes of story a season, 12 episodes at an hour long a piece however, is 720 minutes of story telling. That’s nearly double, and would allow for more minor details to be expanded upon.
Image via: Den of Geek
In terms of casting, Netflix has been looking for people of color. Shyamalan's movie was derided not just because it was bad, but because the majority of the main cast was white. The show is set in a conglomerate world built upon East Asian, New World, and Inuit influences… None of which contain any white people. Original series co-creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko talked about this in a statement from 2018:
"We can't wait to realize Aang's world as cinematically as we always imagined it to be, and with a culturally appropriate, non-whitewashed cast. It's a once-in-a-lifetime chance to build upon everyone's great work on the original animated series and to go even deeper into the characters, story, action, and world-building."
Konietzko did reveal on his Instagram that he was looking for a way to involve Dante Basco, one of the most recognizable voice actors in the game who played Zuko in the original show, in the remake somehow. Basco also reprised his role for Avatar's sequel series The Legend of Korra, but obviously won't be playing Zuko in the remake.
Image via: Facebook
In a series of casting descriptions acquired by entertainment site GWW (GeeksWorldWide), it sounds like a lot of character backstories could be changed, in particular adding in an adoption narrative to Aang's childhood and having Fire Lord Ozai pit him and Zuko against each other for some "project." It all sounds sort of fake and bad, and nothing has been confirmed by Netflix, so hopefully this is just one of those rumors that eventually proves to be false.
Original series creators DiMartino and Konietzko were originally going to executive produce the show, but in August of 2020, both announced that they had left the project in June 2020, citing creative differences with Netflix. We'll probably never know what exactly happened, but it all sounds pretty damning, especially for a company like Netflix, which has traditionally kept very hands-off of its own productions. Some suspected it had something to do with the network's original promise to cast all non-white actors for the principal roles, and fans even called to boycott the series back in August 2020. But with the castings announcements, all being Asian, that was false.
Image via: Comicbook.com
The original show's voice cast, during a virtual reunion panel, questioned the point of the live-action show, with Dee Bradley Baker (who voiced Appa and Momo) asking, "I'm open to whatever they do with the live-action series, which I know nothing about, but it's like, 'Well, how do you do this better than the way that it was rendered on this show?' I don’t know how you do that! I hope you can." They discussed M. Night Shyamalan barring DiMartino and Konietzko from having any creative input in his movie, and Olivia Hack (who voiced Ty Lee) said, "Especially when you're doing the exact same series, but as a live-action. You're not adding onto it or expanding the universe. You're doing the same thing, which feels redundant, but I don't know."
Composer Jeremy Zuckerman was initially set to return to compose the score of the series… but has since left the project as well. Jan Chol Lee, who worked on Disney's Big Hero 6, among others, is a concept designer for the series. Dan Lin (The Lego Movie, It, Sherlock Holmes) will be executive producing.
I have a lot of questions about the series, and I’m not entirely sure how it will work… And losing the shows original creators brings up a lot of red flags. But as long as they don’t copy the animated show, BUT they expand on things to make it feel different, and maybe aim it at young adults not children… I’ll be happy.
I also just want to see more of Zuko and his uncle Iroh. They’re my favorite duo in any animated show ever, and their bond is one that I want to see as much of as I possibly can. At the end of the day, the original show created amazing character development, and gave us a lot of amazing characters throughout it 60-episode run. If we get strong characters, who are built up perfectly, that’ll be a win. Take HBO Max’s Titans series for example. Phenomenal character development, but the plots aren’t always nearly as strong. Yet, the show is still fairly decent and very popular. Worst case scenario getting something like that wouldn’t be terrible.
My friend Kendal Chandler, a fellow Avatar: The Last Airbender aficionado, shares her thoughts on the upcoming live-action series:
Having been a die hard fan of ALTA since it first reached our televisions in 2005, I was excited to see we were getting a live-action series. We really needed some redemption after the travesty that was the 2010 live-action film. Knowing the original creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko were at the helm of this project, well that was the cherry on top, until it wasn’t. I have to be honest, when it was announced DiMartino and Konietzko pulled out of the project, my excitement for it did diminish. I was and still am left with the question - is this retelling going to be any good now that the creators and the original composer Jeremy Zuckerman aren’t attached to it? The creators made such an immersive world and Zuckerman composed a beautiful score to accompany the story, without them how is this world going to feel?
So many things went wrong with the 2010 film because Nickelodeon was heading it and they were only after the money. I worry this is the same fate Netflix will give this new series, but I guess only time will tell.
I’m not usually a fan of live-action retellings. They don’t always feel genuine to the original piece. Maybe that’s just the way I absorb content. To me, live-actions feel like there’s a possibility this place and story is and could be real, cartoons are the illusion of fantasy, anything can happen, like bending the elements and a child having to bear the responsibility to end a war. But all things considered I am curious how this story will translate from cartoon to live-action, and will definitely give it a watch.
Even if this live action series fails, we potentially have more to look forward to, now that DiMartino and Konietzko have announced Avatar Studios and plans to expand on this world. Maybe we’ll learn more about past Avatars or what the Gaang got up to after taking down Firelord Ozai and ending the Hundred Year War.