Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko co-created the beloved Nickelodeon animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender back in 2005. The series ran for three seasons, quickly garnering a devoted fanbase and establishing itself as one of the very best animated shows of all time.
Back in 2012, Avatar got a sequel series, The Legend of Korra, which was also an enormous success. Since then, however, further installments in the beloved series have been scant. Fans have seen the story expand through numerous comic books and novels. But in terms of animation projects, it's been silent.
Rather than continuing the animated saga, the Avatar Universe has expanded its horizons into live-action, with Netflix airing the first season of a full remake show last year. That show has gotten mixed reviews. It was praised for its special effects and scope, but criticized for heavily condensing the source material and having a darker tone. DiMartino and Konietzko were originally signed on to produce the remake but left before it really off the ground, which could according for a lot of changes. That said, Netflix has renewed the series through to its natural conclusion, which is a pretty big feat nowadays.
While Netflix does its thing, DiMartino and Konietzko are hard at work at bringing back the animated universe over at Avatar Studios. A new animated show will follow Avatar Korra's successor and will be set around 100 years after the conclusion of her show.
Given the enormous evolution of the Four Nations between Aang and Korra's eras, we can expect the new show to have an even more modern setting. Other than that, however, details are scarse. In a recent interview with The Illustration Department Podcast, Michael Dante DiMartino explained that the upcoming series will retain a strong connection to Aang and Korra's stories. "Oh, it’s all gonna be connected. You’ll see. There’s connections with the new stuff," he teased, adding that the new Avatar will need to "deal with the ramifications of what the previous Avatar did."
One of the biggest challenges DiMartino is facing is establishing new stories and not copying arcs from previous Avatar shows. "When we did Korra, and now we’re doing new stuff, and it’s always like, 'Is that too similar to what Aang went through, or is that too similar to what we did with Zuko?" he said. "That’s why we made Korra an older girl who wanted to fight, let’s make her as different as possible personality-wise from what Aang was."
All we know about the next Avatar is that they'll be born an Earthbender, if the normal Avatar cycle continues. Beyond that, we don't know anything about them, but there's no doubt that they'll be completely unique.
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