Avatar: The Last Airbender Creator Details Inspirations Behind Series

While Netflix is currently working on creating a new live-action series that will retell the story of Aang and his fellow benders in the upcoming Avatar: The Last Airbender, Avatar Studios is working with the creators of the original series, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, to tell new animated stories in the Nickelodeon universe. With the first feature-length film from Avatar Studios slated to arrive in 2025, Bryan Konietzko recently talked about the original series, and its follow-up in The Legend of Korra, and what inspired the creation of this fan-favorite franchise.

To start, Konietzko discussed how his travels to South Korea, and interactions with the animation studios there, helped in the creation of Avatar: The Last Airbender and how the creators’ approach to the series helped forge a story that has withstood the test of time and is universally praised as one of Nickelodeon’s best animated series to date:

“That gave me this whole window into something I was very curious about, the actual animation. That experience and exposure really fed into making Avatar. We got really lucky that there was this moment in time where Nickelodeon was looking to branch out from comedy, from coming of age shows that they were well-known for. We wanted to create a story that had a shelf-life. Let’s not have a ‘reset button’. Let’s let the characters grow and have an arc.” 

What Inspired Avatar: The Last Airbender?

Bryan then discussed how movies such as Star Wars and Willow helped to forge universes that assisted in the creation of Avatar, with each feeling “epic” in their own respective ways: 

“It’s not magic, it’s something that’s learned, it’s earned. It’s cumulative and that’s how you tell an epic, there has to be a journey. Being a kid who grew up on Star Wars and Willow, getting to immerse into a huge world gave me the feeling that I wanted to create something like that. Avatar is what we wanted to make.”

The first film from Avatar Studios will focus on Aang and his friends, though the new project has yet to confirm if it will take place immediately following the original series or if we’ll focus on a story that fills in more of the gaps of their adulthoods, which were hinted at in The Legend of Korra.