Netflix’s live-action adaptation of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” has an official premiere date: February 22, 2024. The news was revealed as part of the streamer’s Geeked Week.
“Time is a funny thing. The past, the future, it all gets mixed up,” Uncle Iroh (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) says in the first teaser. “There’s only one way to keep it straight: Always remember who you are.”
Earlier this week, Netflix revealed a new poster for the series, which showed Aang (Gordon Cormier), Katara (Kiawentiio) and Sokka (Ian Ousley) riding Aang’s flying bison, Appa. Now the streamer has dropped even more footage including new photos and a teaser.
Previously, Cormier starred as Joe in Paramount+’s “The Stand;” Kiawentiio starred in Netflix’s “Anne with an E” and Peacock’s “Rutherford Falls;” and Ousley starred in Apple TV+’s “Physical” as well as Netflix’s “13 Reasons Why.” Additionally, the series stars Dallas Liu (“Tekken,” “PEN15”) as Prince Zuko and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee (“Train 48,” “Kim’s Convenience”) as Zuko’s uncle General Iroh.
With Albert Kim as its showrunner, the live-action “Avatar: The Last Airbender” is based on the Nickelodeon series of the same name from Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. The action-adventure series is set in a universe where certain people known as Benders have the ability to control the elements. In this universe, only one person can master all four of the elements — water, earth, fire and air — a reincarnated leader known as the Avatar. At one point, all the nations lived together in harmony until the Fire Nation attacked. When the world needed its Avatar most, Aang vanished. A hundred years later, the young Aang has to navigate and save this new world before it’s too late.
The original series ran from 2005 to 2008 and won five Annie Awards, a Genesis Award, a Primetime Emmy and a Peabody Award. It also spawned a sequel series, “The Legend of Korra;” a live-action film adaptation, M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Last Airbender”; a prequel novel series and several comics. Paramount has also announced that three animated “Avatar” movies are also in the works.
Initially, DiMartino and Konietzko were supposed to serve as the executive producers and showrunners for the live-action adaptation. But in June of 2020 the two parted ways from the project due to creative differences.
