Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 2 Was ‘Designed’ Before The Live-Action Show Premiered

Lea Veloso
·5 min read
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Spoilers ahead for Avatar: The Last Airbender. With the powerful cliffhanger ending that happened at the last possible second, many fans might be wondering if there will be a live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2. Since the animated version has three seasons out, it would make sense that they had this all planned out, right?

Avatar: The Last Airbender originated as an animated Nickelodeon show created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko and premiered in 2005. The show has become a cult classic for it’s complex topics of war, genocide, and friendship while still being a child-friendly show. In fact, this isn’t the first time that there has been a live-action of the series. In 2012, M. Night Shyamalan released a movie adaptation The Last Airbender, which received negative reviews at the time of its release.

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Netflix announced that they would be making a live-action adaptation in 2019, with DiMartino and Konietzko as showrunners. The duo left the show in 2020, and Albert Kim was announced as showrunner.

In comparison to the live-action movie, the Netflix remake features a cast of Indigenous and Asian actors as the animated series derives a lot from Asian and Indigenous influences, martial arts, and settings. Kim stated in a blog that “a live-action version would establish a new benchmark in representation and bring in a whole new generation of fans. This was a chance to showcase Asian and Indigenous characters as living, breathing people. Not just in a cartoon, but in a world that truly exists, very similar to the one we live in.”

So will there be a season 2 for the live-action remake of Avatar: The Last Airbender? Read more to find out.

Will there be an Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2?

Season 2 of the live-action remake of Avatar: The Last Airbender hasn’t been announced yet, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a potential to make one.

“There’s still a lot of work that has to be done, and it’s a race to the finish line at this point,” Kim told Entertainment Weekly about setting up season 1 weeks before its release. “So right now, that’s all I’m consumed with. I don’t want to think about tomorrow yet.”

Kim acknowledged that there was a timing difference between the animated and live-action versions, and that they planned it all out so that it would make sense to the actors’ ages. “All three seasons of the animated series essentially take place in the course of one calendar year,” he told the publication. “There was no way we could do that. So we had to design this first season, especially, to accommodate the possibility of some time elapsing between the first and the second season.”

A particular storyline that’s pivotal to the overall series is the arrival of Sozin’s Comet, which leads to the climax of the animated show. “The comet was their ticking clock,” Kim explains. “We removed that particular ticking clock from our show for now because we couldn’t know exactly how old our actors would be for the subsequent seasons. We definitely thought about that going into season 1 so that we can accommodate for puberty, adolescence, time passing — all of those fun things that happen to real-life human beings that don’t happen to animated characters.”

What happened at the end of season 1 of Avatar: The Last Airbender?

Season 1 of Avatar: The Last Airbender ends with Aang, Sokka, and Katara leaving the Northern Water Tribe to explore the Earth Kingdom so that Aang can master earth bending. However, it’s revealed that Azula has plans to conquer Omashu which leads to the potential of the Siege of Ba Sing Se storyline for season 2, dubbed in the animated version as “Book 2: Earth.”

Elizabeth Yu, who plays Azula in the live-action remake, told StyleCaster about her hopes for season 2 for her character. “I’m excited for people to finally meet that person that we all know. I wanted there to be a difference between her not being fully cooked yet to when the timer goes off. That’s when we meet her in Omashu where she’s finally the dog that’s been let off the leash. I’m so excited to be doing scenes that people remember from the original series because all of my stuff in the show is completely new. There are so many iconic and familiar moments of Azula, as we know, and I’m excited to get my hands on it.”

Why did Avatar: The Last Airbender‘s creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino leave?

Avatar: The Last Airbender‘s creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino left due to creative differences between them and Netflix.

“When Bryan and I signed on to the project in 2018, we were hired as executive producers and showrunners,” DiMartino wrote in a now-deleted blog post. “In a joint announcement for the series, Netflix said that it was committed to honoring our vision for this retelling and to supporting us on creating the series. And we expressed how excited we were for the opportunity to be at the helm. Unfortunately, things did not go as we had hoped.”

DiMartino called exiting the project “the hardest professional decision I’ve ever had to make,” adding: “Netflix’s live-action adaptation of ‘Avatar’ has the potential to be good. It might turn out to be a show many of you end up enjoying. But what I can be certain about is that whatever version ends up on-screen, it will not be what Bryan and I had envisioned or intended to make.”

Though, the two are still going strong with Avatar content as they’re spearheading Avatar Studios at Nickelodeon. They announced that they are in the production process of making a new animated Avatar movie of Team Avatar when they’re adults.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is now streaming on Netflix.

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