Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, the original creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender, may have worked on a live-action adaptation of the beloved animated series for Netflix for years. However, the announcement that they were leaving the project due to creative differences came as a shock to the fans.
Perhaps for that reason, Netflix’s live-action upcoming Avatar: The Last Airbender has not yet received the green light for a second season. It seems like the showrunner, Albert Kim, just does not have room in his mind to even consider that.
The timeline of the live-action series has already undergone a substantial change, according to Kim, who spoke with Entertainment Weekly. Instead of spanning more than a year like the source material and highlighting Sozin’s Comet as a pivotal plot point, the exact time frame during which the show takes place has been removed.
Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Impact of Relegating Sozin’s Comet
The live-action eight-episode series Avatar: The Last Airbender has already undergone a significant timeline shift, showrunner Albert Kim revealed to Entertainment Weekly, ahead of its February premiere. Although Sozin’s Comet is a central plot point, the exact period of time the show takes place has been altered; unlike the original source material, which takes place over a year. This upcoming live-action has skipped that part.
“All three seasons of the animated series essentially take place in the course of one calendar year. There was no way we could do that. So we had to design this first season, especially, to accommodate the possibility of some time elapsing between the first and the second season. The comet was their ticking clock. We removed that particular ticking clock from our show for now because we couldn’t know exactly how old our actors would be for the subsequent seasons.”
In addition, the Comet will not be addressed at this time to “accommodate” the young cast’s natural aging in between possible seasons. Kim added:
“We definitely thought about that going into season 1 so that we can accommodate for puberty, adolescence, time passing — all of those fun things that happen to real-life human beings that don’t happen to animated characters.”
Every 100 years, Sozin’s Comet crosses Earth in the universe of Avatar: The Last Airbender, giving firebenders extraordinary power as it skims the atmosphere. They can also accomplish amazing feats like controlling massive flame waves to scorch the Earth and propelling themselves into the air. Thus, the coming seasons will be greatly affected by the comet’s removal.
Albert Kim: It Was ‘Absolutely’ Daunting to Make Live-Action Series After the Original Creators Left
Creative differences led Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, the brains behind the original Avatar: The Last Airbender, to announce their departure from Albert Kim’s live-action adaptation project. With no backing from the franchise’s original creators, Kim found it “absolutely” daunting. He described to Entertainment Weekly the experience of carrying on with the show without Konietzko and DiMartino.
“You’d have to be an idiot not to be intimidated a little bit. My first reaction after ‘Hell yeah!’ was ‘Holy s*it! 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.”
DiMartino stated in an open letter (via EW) that he and Konietzko wrote after leaving the live-action series that they “could not control the creative direction of the series”.
“When Bryan and I signed on to the project in 2018, we were hired as executive producers and showrunners. In a joint announcement for the series, Netflix said that it was committed to honoring our vision for this retelling and to supporting us on creating the series. And we expressed how excited we were for the opportunity to be at the helm. Unfortunately, things did not go as we had hoped.”
The exit of the original creators has left a void in Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender crew, which won’t be easy to fill. While the future of the live-action adaptation hangs in uncertainty, fans can only hope that the show finds the right direction before they lose all interest.
Avatar: The Last Airbender is set to stream on Netflix on February 22.
