It’s been a long road to Netflix’s live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender adaptation. First announced way back in 2020, the project is the franchise’s second attempt at a live-action interpretation (the first event, of course, being M. Night Shyamalan’s infamous 2010 film adaptation).
Now, more information has come to light about the project. For the first time, viewers got a look at the series’ title card, revealing the franchise will be keeping its Avatar prefix in spite of James Cameron’s franchise (which has impacted the use of the prefix before). A release date in 2024 was also unveiled on Saturday at Netflix’s annual TUDUM conference, which was held this year in São Paulo, Brazil. The series cast, including Kiawentiio as Katara, Ian Ousley as Sokka, Dallas Liu as Zuko, and Gordon Cormier as Aang. were also brought on stage to discuss the show.
Kiawentiio also revealed that her personal favorite episode was the fifth episode of the first series; she also revealed that she’s only seen one scene of finished VFX, and stated that it looked amazing. Ousley stated he was excited to have made friends with his fellow cast members, whom he lived with for a year. He also stated that ‘haircut day’ — when the cast got to see their final on-screen looks — was an exciting time, with his first time unsheathing a boomerang being a special experience.
Liu seemed especially excited for Paul Sun-Hyung Lee’s performance as Uncle Iroh, a character who is central to Prince Zuko’s journey. Liu called Lee a “real life Uncle Iroh”, and stated that Daniel Dae Kim’s on-set presence felt perfectly in line with that of Fire Lord Ozai. Lastly, Cormier stated he was excited to bring everything fans ‘loved about the original series’ into live-action.
The cast then introduced the first look at their characters. The released stills reveal an accurate translation of the cast’s costumes into live-action, and fans couldn’t be more excited. The colors are vibrant, the looks are authentic, and, though there are some differences in their clothing, the added embellishments make the characters look a bit more dynamic in live-action.
Though the project has hit some setbacks on its way to the streaming giant — franchise creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko exited the project fairly early on, for example — there’s also lots of promise to be found in the show. Netflix has thus far chosen to primarily employ actors of color in the series in order to reflect the cultural origins of much of the franchise’s lore, its production seems to have spared no expense, and a look at series star Cormier’s Instagram reveals a fun-loving, energetic 13-year-old that perfectly channels Avatar Aang’s energy.
With Stranger Things ending, Netflix is on the lookout for a new flagship. They might have just found it.
