Starting a novelty always carries a risk: investing in a series that can be canceled and, therefore, ended abruptly without an ending. This is especially painful when it comes to epic stories that are presented to the viewer as one grand story, as happened with Shadow and Bone. Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of these series and, luckily, Netflix plans to treat it well: it has been renewed for two more seasons.
The series premiered on February 22 as the platform’s great hope to have a new family phenomenon in the catalog, which would serve as a magnet for children, young people and adults of all ages. And, after seeing the consumption data for the first 11 days, Netflix wanted to speed up the pre-production of Avatar: The Last Airbender with a double renewal.
The data speaks for itself. In 11 days it has accumulated 297.6 million hours watched, which translates into 41.1 million views among the platform’s subscribers. This data confirms it as a solid success for all audiences, taking into account that in the last 12 months only two productions obtained higher data: The Night Agent, which was the surprise of 2023, and the British miniseries Deceptions.
Avatar: The Last Airbender is based on the animated series created by Brian Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, who were initially involved in the live-action adaptation although they left due to artistic disagreements with Netflix. Then Albert Kim became the showrunner.
The story centers on Aang (Gordon Cromier), an air nomad who is the reincarnation of the Avatar, a messianic figure who controls all the elements (air, earth, fire and water) and can restore peace and balance.
After being accidentally frozen for decades, he awakens to find a world devastated by the Fire Nation, which in the absence of the Avatar eliminated hope among the rest of the nations. As he is a child and has not yet mastered the elements, the series continues his formation process while raising the spirits of the population with his kindness, optimism and what he represents: hope, peace and faith in humanity.
The renewal until the third season also allows us to believe that Avatar: The Last Airbender will be able to tell the complete story. The original series had three seasons, each of them focused on the mastery of a different element: connoisseur of air, he first focused on water, then on earth and finally on fire.
And, as communicated with the renewal announcement, this will be the same process that the adaptation will follow. Netflix subscribers can breathe easy because it will not happen like the film adaptation led by M. Night Shyamalan, which only aired the first part and the disaster at the box office prevented the completion of the trilogy.
