There have been several changes behind the scenes behind Netflix’s newest flagship shows, One Piece and Avatar: The Last Airbender. One Piece hit the streaming network last summer during the Hollywood strikes and did surprisingly well (more so internationally, like the original manga). After the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes ended, the streaming network quickly announced a second season was greenlighted. Showrunner Steven Maeda would not return, but co-showrunner Matt Owens took over with a slightly new writers’ room. Due to that, the manga is still ongoing, and the anime has over 1000 episodes. This series could last a while if the streaming numbers hold. Now, The Streamr has revaled that production is set to return to South Africa this June for season 2. They are also expected to have a higher episode count than season 1, which only had eight episodes.
Next, Netflix released its highly anticipated Avatar: The Last Airbender adaption this past February. The streamed numbers were almost double One Piece’s, but it wasn’t universally acclaimed critically. Scoring only 60% on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to One Piece’s 85%. Nevertheless, the service still saw value in completing the story and quickly greenlighting both season 2 and season 3. They also revealed they would be filming back-to-back to account for the young actor’s ages going forward. Recently, showrunner Albert Kim stepped away from the project, and writer Christine Boylan has taken over as showrunner alongside producing director Jabbar Raisani. They will oversee a slightly new writers’ room for the subsequent seasons. Whats-on-Netflix revealed that production is expected to begin sometime in Vancouver in Q3 of this year (July-Sep). It’s unknown if they will be going back to use The Volume or strictly move to on-set filming for season 2. We at Knight Edge Media heard that they could cut the number of episodes from eight, but it is not set in stone; it was only discussed. While both shows were massive successes for the streaming network, they both have room for improvement if they want to take over Netflix’s biggest show, Stranger Things, following its final season.
Avatar: The Last Airbender and One Piece are both streaming on Netflix now