Makers say Netflix soured Airbender’s live-action remake

In a rare public fallout for Netflix, the makers of the highly anticipated, live-action adaptation of the platform’s Avatar: The Last Airbender, the award-winning Nickelodeon comic, have left the project.

Avatar: The Last AirbenderThe full run was available this past June on Netflix, attracting an enormous audience and governing the popularity of the 2000s cartoons. But in separate posts published to their respective blogs and Instagrams, Avatar franchise creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko said they were no longer involved in the previously announced Netflix remake, due to lengthy creative differences. (Vox reached out to Netflix for comment.)

‘When Netflix brought me on board two years ago to run this series alongside Mike,’ Konietzko wrote in his Instagram post, ‘they made a very public promise to support our vision. Unfortunately, there was no follow-up to that promise. … [T]the overall treatment of the project created what I felt was a negative and unsupported environment. ”

“I realized I could not control the creative direction of the series, but I could control how I react,” DiMartino added on his own website. “That, I have chosen to leave the project.”

Both makers described the move as “a difficult decision”, but said they had lost confidence that Netflix would honor its vision for the show. This comes almost two years after Netflix announced the live-action reboot of the series, and elicited an enormous response. Despite its short run, which ended more than a decade ago, Avatar fans remain loyal – and the fact that Netflix had gained the viewers of the series seemed to give them confidence in the project.

That may no longer be the case. It’s rare for Netflix to have such a public breakup with the makers of one of its high-profile productions, let alone makers whose names are synonymous with the beloved, established franchise of which the project is a part. More surprising is that Netflix has enjoyed tremendous success with the Avatar community this year. The recent release of Airbender on the platform – making it more accessible to viewers than it has been in years – the show topped the Netflix Top 10 list for weeks. The Netflix debut has apparently confirmed the show’s popularity, while it has been introduced to wide swaths of new fans.

Airbenderhis continuation, Legend of Korra, will also be on the platform later this week. That timing makes the announcement of DiMartino and Konietzko’s departure from the live-action series more interesting – despite Netflix offering a home for the franchise, AirbenderThe future with the streaming platform is now under new control.

It also brings up the fate of the live-action series in a way that is confidentially known Avatar fans It’s certainly not the first time the franchise has found itself in a precarious position when live action is involved.

About his favorite three-season run, Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005–08) became a real game changer. Set in a fantasy world based primarily on Asian cultures, Airbender became famous for its sensitive multicultural storytelling, which revolved around a team of “benders” – people who can manipulate the four elements – using their powers to stop an aggressive, militarized nation from the violent conquest of neighboring countries. In addition to carefully avoiding harmful orientalist tropics, the show took pains to portray its various cultural allegories as distinctive. And with a pre-planned, three-season storyline, it got to invest deeply over time in both its world structure and characters, allowing it to evolve organically toward a deeply satisfying conclusion.

People who love Airbender really, really love Airbender. But over the years, the Peabody award-winning show has had its downside. The most notorious of these is the disastrous adaptation of Paramount’s live-action film. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan, the film had one of the most toxic, embattled and infamous productions in recent memory. Fans staged protests that lasted well over a year because of the film’s muddying of the careful cultural origins of the show’s original worldview and the casting of white actors in ethnic roles – a practice that became famous as racebending.

When it was released in June of 2010, it turned out that Shyamalan’s finished product was a gigantic artistic embarrassment, a critically panned and high-profile flop that nearly ended the director’s career. It also left a stain behind Airbenderhis legacy, expelled newcomers and fans of long time.

The fate of the film could have decisively ended any attempt to turn the animated Airbender in a live action something. But then Netflix announced the adaptation of the live action in 2018, many fans were envious and excited to see what a trou adaptation of the show could be achieved – especially with the involvement of the makers, as opposed to the hand-off approach that DiMartino and Konietzko took with Shyamalan’s film.

The news has surprised fans, many of whom are now asking if they even want another attempt at an interpretation of the show’s live action without the makers at the helm. After all, the film already showed us that Konietzko and DiMartino’s original vision – an anime-influenced story with versatile themes and slow, satisfying character arcs – could be completely imprisoned if the project fell into the wrong hands. Capture the spirit of Airbender seems to require a sensitive touch; from the sounds of the makers’ messages, it does not sound like Netflix has that much.

Fans were envious of the show to overcome the ignorance of the scary movie, and 2020 has indeed felt like a big thrill for the franchise. The Legend of Korra is a much more divisive follow-up, but it’s also ready for a cultural revival when it debuts on August 14 on Netflix. May Airbender back in the spotlight, the timing was just right for a re-evaluation of Korra – mar no Korra ‘s Netflix debut can be overshadowed by the makers’ own exit from the live-action series.

However, DiMartino and Konietzko insist that this is not the end of the franchise or its involvement in it. And the adaptation of Netflix’s live action still seems to be happening. And as strange as it is for Netflix to part ways with such high-profile makers, it’s not like Netflix does not have a proven track record when it comes to reimagining new franchises from other media – just look at its wildly popular live-action adaptation fan The Witcher, as the recent reboot of The Babysitter’s Club. Plus, when a deep favorite series is adapted, rebuilt, or re-launched, it’s bound to turn off at least some hardcore fans, regardless of quality.

‘And who knows? Netflix’s live action adaptation of Avatar has the potential to be good. It may be a show that many of you enjoy, “DiMartino wrote.” But what I can be sure of is that whatever version ends up on screen, it will not be what Bryan and I had imagined or intended to create. “

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