Albert Kim Discusses 'Avatar: The Last Airbender' Creators’ Departure From Netflix Adaptation
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Fandom is a fascinating thing. It could be a field of study in psychology all on it’s own, exploring how people behave and attach themselves to their favorite movies, books, etc. The advent of the internet has only increased the zeal and spread of fandoms. News of their favorite franchises is like gambling: it can either go well or disastrously, and there’s seemingly no way to predict it.
Therefore, there was a noticeable wince from Avatar: The Last Airbender fans the world over when it was announced that Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, the creators of the hit animated show, were departing the live-action project with Netflix. Showrunner Albert Kim was one of them, and he addresses this in a recent interview with EW.
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Kim told EW, “You'd have to be an idiot not to be intimidated a little bit…” Konietzko and DiMartino stated that their departure from the show, which by all accounts was on good terms, was their inability to “control the creative direction of the series” and that the live-action adaptation has the “potential to be good” but in the end it was not going to be what they set out to make. Kim’s reaction was understandable. “My first reaction after ‘Hell yeah!’ was ‘Holy s---! Do I really want to do this? Is there a way to improve upon the original?’ Whenever you tackle something that's already beloved by millions of fans, you have to ask yourself those questions.”
It’s obvious that the show is still happening, so he ultimately took on the role. Konietzko and DiMartino aren’t totally divested from the project either. Kim, a fan of the show along with the writers, sat down with them to get the answers to his questions, which ranged from the hyper-focused one expects from fans, to the broader directional kind. Kim did underscore that this was not the animated show. The animated show, at least for the first season, operated on a sort of mission-of-the-week set of episodes. That won’t fly in an 8-episode serialized format, so he and the writers have had to unravel some of the events of the first season, while also keeping others, in order to tell a story more appropriate for the medium.
He assured EW that all the writers were fans of the show, so it was in good hands. Netflix’s live-action adaptation will premiere on February 22, 2024.
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