Netflix giving Avatar: The Last Airbender creators “creative freedom” for live-action remake

Disney isn’t the only studio making live-action versions of animated classics. Netflix is bankrolling a remake of the beloved Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender, with original series creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino at the helm. Aaron Ehasz, the head writer on the original show, is not involved in the remake — he’s busy with his own Netflix fantasy show, The Dragon Prince. But he did talk to Inverse about why people should be excited about it:

"I think it’s an opportunity for the fans. It’s definitely an opportunity for Mike and Brian to do a live-action telling of this story right, which I think is both going to be a combination of how they cast it, how they creatively cast it, who are the producers and writers involved."

If this is an opportunity to get a live-action Last Airbender right, that means someone got it wrong, and that someone is most definitely M. Night Shyamalan, whose 2010 movie version of the story is reviled to this day.

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There are a lot of reasons Shymalan’s movie failed — baffling casting choices, wooden acting, muddy 3D effects — but Ehasz zeroes in on the tone. “One of the things that was always hard about Avatar that I don’t think translated well to the movie was that it does have this balance in tone that it’s dramatic and epic and emotional, but it’s also funny and quirky and delightful,” he said. “I think they’ll find that.” Let’s hope.

Finally, Ehasz assured fans that Netflix is fully behind the new show. For one thing, Jenna Boyd, the executive who championed the original show on Nickelodeon, is now at Netflix and doing the same thing for the remake. “I know, they have a big challenge ahead,” Ehasz said, “but they definitely have more creative freedom, more support, and a better chance to tell the authentic story in a way that I think the fans of Avatar will enjoy.”

At the moment, Netflix hasn’t released anything official about The Last Airbender remake — the closest thing we have is that concept art at the top of this post — but if Netflix can pull this off, it could have a winner on its hands.

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