It has been exactly one year since the beginning of production on Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender live-action series. Production on Book 1: Water ran from November 2021 through June 2022 with 3 weeks off for Christmas in Vancouver. We at Knight Edge Media had been in contact with a source on set from over the summer that revealed preliminary talks by the streaming service regarding a potential season 2 and season 3 (titled Book 2: Earth & Book 3: Fire) renewal has already taken place.
According to our source, if the series gets good new subscriber numbers, the streaming service is considering renewing the series to film both seasons back-to-back. This would account for stars Gordon Cormier (Aang) and Kiawentiio‘s (Katara) ages as they will already be 14 and 17 by the time Book 2 begins filming. We don’t know if the new series will adjust their ages in the plot to explain their real-life age progression. In the original series, all three seasons take place over a year with Aang 12 throughout, though that’s pretty unreasonable in live-action form. As they could write, Sozin’s Comet is three years away instead of one. If they change Aang’s age throughout the series run, they could also age up fan-favorite blind earth bender Toph, as she isn’t introduced until Book 2.
According to CBR, this would align with the streaming service’s recent renewals of The Witcher, filming its seasons 4 and 5 back-to-back. As well as filming the Red Notice sequels back-to-back, according to The Wrap. And, finally, Netflix did this with A Series of Unfortunate Events seasons 2 and 3 (via Express UK) in 2017. Again, this only depends on Netflix’s “new subscriber” model during the first two weekends of a show’s release. Netflix has been known to cancel shows after a single season due to low new subscribers and low episode viewing. Most recently canceling the Arden Cho-led series Partner Track (via Variety) after a single season. However, they sound like they are moving to a different lifetime customer value model for show renewals. According to Whats-on-Netflix, the streaming service will also look at full episode completions throughout its season in consideration for renewal, not just new subscriber counts. Again, this is just an option the streaming service is considering if the first season does well.
Avatar: The Last Airbender will stream exclusively on Netflix sometime in 2023
Small Tidbit: One thing Netflix & Rideback is considering is once #AvatarTheLastAirbender debuts and they get their numbers to decide to greenlight S2
Netflix may consider greenlighting S2 & S3 to film back-to-back because of Gordon Cormier and Kiawentiio’s ages pic.twitter.com/xe8nzBOJ89
— Caleb Williams (@KnightGambit) September 10, 2022