The showrunner of Netflix's live action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender has finally addressed the original creators walking away from the project in 2020.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Albert Kim said he felt intimidated to continue the show without original animated show creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino — who departed the live action project in 2020 after working on it for two years — and questioned whether he should do it altogether.
"You'd have to be an idiot not to be intimidated a little bit," Kim said. "My first reaction [to being offered the job] after 'hell yeah’ was ‘holy s**t. Do I really want to do this? Is there a way to improve upon the original?’ Whenever you tackle something that's already beloved by millions of fans, you have to ask yourself those questions."
Always remember who you are. Avatar: The Last Airbender, premieres February 22, 2024. #GeekedWeek pic.twitter.com/Bql52Kdhql
— Netflix (@netflix) November 9, 2023
Three seasons of Avatar: The Last Airbender originally aired on Nickelodeon and it is widely considered one of the best TV shows of all time. A sequel series The Legend of Korra arrived years later (alongside several comic books and novels), and Konietzko and DiMartino are currently developing more animated projects set in the same universe.
The live action series will conversely be an adaptation of the very first series of Avatar: The Last Airbender instead of a continuation, though Kim said they're changing some elements to retell the tale for a new generation.
"We don't start the show the way the animated series starts. That was a conscious decision to show people this is not the animated series," Kim said. "We had to sometimes unravel storylines and remix them in a new way to make sense for a serialized drama. So I'm very curious to see what'll happen in terms of reaction to that."
Kim insisted the Netflix series will still honour the original show, saying all the writers are fans of the original. There's also plenty of Konietzko and DiMartino left in it, spurred by an early conversation Kim had with the pair.
"It ran the range of really nerdy little things that no one except for diehard fans might wonder about — questions about Katara’s mom or Aang’s parentage — to bigger picture stuff about how to translate what made the original so special into a live-action version," Kim said. He added, however: "This is Avatar: The Last Airbender, but it is our version of Avatar: The Last Airbender."
Konietzko and DiMartino said they left because "Netflix said that it was committed to honouring our vision for this retelling" but "things did not go as we had hoped". They said the show had "the potential to be good" but "will not be what Bryan and I had envisioned or intended to make".
The adaptation was announced way back in 2018 and is finally arriving February 22, 2024. It stars Gordon Cormier as Aang, Kiawentiio Tarbell as Katara, Ian Ousley as Sokka, Dallas Liu as Zuko, and Paul Sun-Hyungas as Uncle Iroh . Netflix shared a first look Aang in friends in June 2023 before revealing the Fire Nation characters in Ocbtoer.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
