Avatar Studios, created to churn our content set in the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender, was welcomed with great fanfare by fans. To think of a studio that would dedicate all its resources towards making Avatar content was a huge win for fans of the franchise. However, fans were curious about what kinds of projects they might see coming out of the studio, leading to tons of rumors about the nature of the shows and films that the studio was making.
One such rumor seemed to be that Avatar: The Last Airbender will be getting a second helping with a fourth season, one that would focus on adapting the Dark Horse Comics run with the IP, which followed Zuko and Azula, where the former served as sort of an Uncle Iroh figure to the former heir apparent to the Phoenix Throne. However, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko set the record straight about Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 4.
There was never meant to be a Season 4 of ATLA
When speaking about the rumors that had come out with respect to Season 4 of The Last Airbender, creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko talked about the possibility of the rumors, and what they had planned from the beginning. Konietzko opened with:
There was never going to be a season 4, not from us and not from Nickelodeon. Mike and I planned ATLA to be a three-season arc as far back as our initial pitch in 2002, and in 2008 we finished the story we set out to tell.
This was followed with DiMartino saying:
We finished the show exactly as we had intended. We hadn’t considered continuing Aang’s story until Dark Horse Comics approached us with the idea of returning to ATLA in graphic novel form. And at that point we worked with writer Gene Luen Yang to expand the story beyond the animated series.
It seems that there was never a plan for the fourth season, with current impending offerings from the studio focusing on a multitude of things. While the IP will be revisiting Aang and his friends, the focus currently seems to be on theatrical animate releases in 2025, along with an alleged Earth Bender Avatar series, scheduled to come along the same year.
What is next for Avatar Studios?
According to Polygon, there seems to be a lot on the horizon for the Avatar IP which has left fans excited in the wake of Netflix’s attempt to once again translate the world into live action. This includes a slew of films, and of course, the Earth Avatar series, rumored to take place 100 years after the events of the Legend of Korra, taking the world even more forward in the timeline.
While theatrical films about Aang and his friends are also in the works, fans are particularly excited for the next big step in the Avatar timeline. Given that Korra drew its inspiration from 1920s Shanghai and Manhattan, it is possible that the technology of the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender would have caught up to the technology of our times, which would give it a more Naruto-esque feel as bending melds together with technology.
Might we see bloodbending doctors, who diagnose physical ailments through their powers? Is it possible that the world of ATLA will develop an industrial complex around pure metal weapons as a way of equalizing benders and non-benders?
Or perhaps, as the populace marches towards a more scientific world, spirituality falls off to the wayside, causing lesser benders to be born, relating those with powers to the same fate as the X-Men? No one but Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko know.
