Netflix’s The Last Avatar live-action remake starts shooting in early 2020

We’ve heard precious little about Netflix’s upcoming live-action remake of Avatar: The Last Airbender since it was announced a little over a year ago. The drought has been so bad that we’ve basically had to make up our own news.

Still, there’s plenty of reason to be excited. Unlike the execrable 2010 movie version, the Netflix series will be headed up by original series creators series creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. And now, we finally have some new information courtesy of actor Jessie Flower, who voiced the blind badass earthbender Toph in the original series.

Flower discussed the series while appearing on the Wyrd Crafts Chitchat Podcast. “[W]ith the new live-action [series] coming out through Netflix and they are gonna start filming it this next spring,” she said. “Theres been a resurgence of Avatar with people having rewatching parties.”

"I talked with Mike & Bryan in May this past summer. […] So we had lunch and they talked about their process and how they are primarily involved with this as opposed to the live-action movie that happened. That we don’t talk about [haha]. We are excited about the casting being true to the location and background heritage and all that stuff. Where each nation is based and will be casting from that location. Or at least casting someone who is primarily from that ancestry location.  So they are trying to be really PC about the whole thing. They just have a lot more say and hands-on perspective I guess on the direction, filming, and how it’s scripted. And I’m pretty sure it’s going to all be done up in Canada. They are going to start filming I think in February. That’s rough but sometime in early 2020 they will get the ball rolling."

Filming in February of 2020? I’m definitely down with that. With so little news about the project, I was starting to worry that it was being quietly killed, so I’m very glad to hear this.

I’m also happy to hear that DiMartino and Konietzko will have creative control, and that they’ll be casting people who more accurately reflect the characters as depicted on the original show. Among the many sucky things about M. Night Shyamalan’s live-action movie was that it cast white actors as characters clearly living in Eastern-inspired milieus. Also the acting and writing and directing was bad. There’s room for improvement all around.

And might there be a cameo in the cards for Flower or other members of the original voice cast? “I’m going to try to visit set and hopefully [You should try to sneak a cameo in there],” Flower said. “They just offered me to visit set and said it be super cool. There’s obviously going to be press around it so I’m hoping they get the live-action cast do an interview with the original cast. I think it be super cool since all these kids are going to be age-appropriate between 10-15. It’ll be cool to see the dichotomy of the two casts. I hope that happens at some point. Something I want to happen pre-release.”

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