Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of the most beloved animated shows ever created. Despite being well over a decade since it ended, its fanbase seems to get bigger every day. Netflix is capitalizing on that popularity with a big-budget, live-action adaptation. Fans are cautiously hopeful after M. Night Shyamalan’s awful attempt at a movie adaptation in 2010, and the signs are good.
Netflix is sparing no expense in bringing the series into live-action. The show reportedly has a budget of $120 million USD, with each episode costing in excess of $15 million. For reference, the final season of Game of Thrones had the same $15 million budget for each episode.
During an interview with Everything Zen ExtraZ, star Yvonne Chapman (Avatar Kyoshi) praised the show, promising that the money pumped into the project will be reflected in the final product:
"I can’t say very much for this project, but I will say: from what I’ve seen, and my experience on the show, the fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender will not be disappointed with this live-action series. It looks phenomenal."
It turns out that Chapman is a big fan of the Avatar series herself, especially the Kyoshi novels. Makes sense. “I love the Kyoshi books– so addicted to those,” Chapman said. “Her backstory and just everything about this character is so beautifully written and really thoughtful. She just has one of the most fascinating stories of any character that I’ve read, so I definitely felt the pressure of being able to bring her to life and hopefully the fans respond in a really positive way. Luckily it’s not just me at the helm, it’s a team of people really wanting to get this right, and I hope we did. I think we did.”
How will Netflix recreate the fights of Avatar: The Last Airbender in live-action?
One of the first things that comes to mind when you think of Avatar: The Last Airbender is the crazy cool fight scenes, intricate king-fu battles that also have characters controlling fire, water, air and earth. But creating these kinds of fights in live-action is no easy matter. Just ask Shyamalan
“Avatar was very unique in that we had very accurate kung-fu in the show, which was a completely unheard of thing in TV at the time,” director Giancarlo Volpe, who worked on the original show, said during WonderCon 2022, per CBR. “I think there was also this fantasy that if we finally had a budget and did a show about martial arts, we would hire a martial arts instructor and film and rotoscope him. It was all those aspirations but no extra budget, so it was very strappy.”
As for the remake, the cast of the show appears to be well trained when it comes to fight scenes. Not only is Gordon Cormier (Aang) trained in Taekwondo, but he’s also talented at skateboarding:
meet Gordon Cormier, who will play Aang in the live action Avatar: The Last Airbender and clearly has already mastered his airbending skills pic.twitter.com/IX37dYfWd9
— Netflix Geeked (@NetflixGeeked) August 16, 2021
Netflix’s Avatar remake doesn’t have a release date yet. It was not included in the streamer’s 2022 slate of fantasy and sci-fi titles, so it will most likely premiere sometime in 2023.
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