Fans of the ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender‘ and ‘The Legend of Korra‘ (including yours truly) just recieved a surprise piece of awesome news today: Nickelodeon is making an animated movie to replace the godawful live action one. Production begins this year.
Better yet, Nickeloden is creating a whole new studio dedicated to expanding the universe. Fittingly dubbed Avatar Studios, it’s being helmed by series’ creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, who will act as chief creative officers. Avatar Studios productions, including upcoming series and movies (plural!) will premier on Nickelodeon and Paramount+.
we’re teaming up with Avatar co-creators Mike and Bryan to launch Avatar Studios with exclusive new content coming to Nick and @paramountplus! https://t.co/jD6HrMBfK9 pic.twitter.com/y8ItY0p5Pl
— Nickelodeon (@Nickelodeon) February 24, 2021
The announcement comes also with a bit of a dig at the upcoming live-action Netflix remake of the original series.
DiMartino and Konietzko were originally involved in that series, before departing in August of 2020 because Netflix didn’t want to make the creators’ original vision happen. To that end, Brian Robbins, President ViacomCBS Kids & Family (which owns Nickolodeon), says “Avatar Studios is a way to give Mike and Bryan the resources and runway to open up their imaginations even more and dive deeper into the action and mythology of Avatar.”
While I’m still holding out a little hope the Netflix series won’t be a total trainwreck — according to Variety, that project has not been canceled — I’m far more excited about the idea of new storylines in the original animated medium. Avatar and Korra are masterpieces, in my book, and I can’t wait to see what’s next in the Avatar universe.