New Avatar: The Last Airbender animated shows and movies are on their way, and the series’ creators have already teased many new eras and stories to come. The news broke when Nickelodeon announced the creation of Avatar Studios, an independent team focused on creating new animated content in the universe of Avatar and The Legend of Korra, with original creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino serving as the creative leads. The studio’s first project will be a theatrical animated Avatar: The Last Airbender movie, set to begin production later in 2021.
Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra were both immensely successful in their day, but the franchise has only grown in popularity since Korra went off the air. Novels, comic books, and other supporting media have been created in recent years to flesh out more of the bending world, but there’s been no new animated content for years. When both shows became available on Netflix in the summer of 2020, they saw an explosion in popularity, with new and old fans alike flocking to the franchise. Now, even more Avatar stories are on the way.
In their official statement, released through EW, Konietzko and DiMartino thanked Nickelodeon and expressed their excitement at returning to the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender. They also teased what sounds like a wide range of new content, encompassing brand-new stories and never-before-seen eras of the four nations. “It’s hard to believe it’s been 19 years since we created Avatar: The Last Airbender,” the creators said. “But even after all that time, there are still many stories and time periods in Aang’s world that we are eager to bring to life.” Konietzko and DiMartino also said that those different stories would take shape “on a vast scale, in myriad exciting ways and mediums.”
It will probably be some time before details for Avatar Studios’ early projects come out, but there are plenty of satisfying directions in which the new stories could go. The movie that’s been announced might most likely focus on the original series’ characters as adults, which could be a rallying point for the broader Avatar fan base around which to begin producing different kinds of new content. Regardless, the potential for Avatar’s future is immense.
One lingering question is how the newly announced studio and coming animated films and shows will affect Netflix’s live-action Avatar remake. Konietzko and DiMartino were part of the Netflix project before leaving in late 2020 due to creative differences. With new animated Avatar: The Last Airbender content on the way, it remains to be seen if Netflix will follow through with their plans to make a separate, live-action series.
