Why Did the ‘Avatar’ Creators Leave Netflix? Their Reasons Aren’t Encouraging.

When I heard that Avatar: The Last Airbender series creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko washed their hands of the Netflix live-action adaptation of the beloved anime series, I was made sore afraid. Their reasons for doing so didn’t do much to reassure us.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of the greatest animated series ever made, as rewatchable as the Lord of the Rings trilogy. There, I said it. Action. Humor. Heart. People throwing rocks at each other. It has everything that I could ever want. Imagine my trauma of being subjected to the live-action travesty that was the M. Night Shamalan adaptation. It took like nine dudes to throw one little rock in that movie! The animated series regularly features one dude throwing at least nine rocks! What gives? It was bad. It was atrocious. It caused the Avatar The Last Airbender fandom to shudder and gag.

Why was it so bad? Because Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko weren’t involved, and now, they’re walking away from another live-action adaptation. History is repeating itself.

Why did they leave the live-action series?

After working on the Netflix adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender for two years, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko walked away from the production due to the fact that they “couldn’t control the creative direction of the series.” They went on to explain their reasoning in detail in an open letter that they published on DiMartino’s website.

According to the letter, they were originally excited about the prospect of leading the series, saying that Netflix had promised to honor their vision for the series retelling. Somewhere along the way, Netflix decided that this would no longer be the case. While DiMartino didn’t cite any offending incident in particular that caused him and his co-creator to walk, he said that the decision came from the sage words of the wise old Uncle Iroh: “Who are you? And what do you want?”

Whatever it was that Netflix was doing to the creators’ original idea, it didn’t jibe with what DiMartino and Konietzko wanted. DiMartino went on to say that he tries to “be like an Air Nomad and adapt” when he faces ups and downs in his career, “but even an Air Nomad knows when it’s time to cut their losses and move on.”

DiMartino said he realized that he could not control the creative direction of the series, but “could control how [he] responded.” He went on to say decision to leave the project was “the hardest professional decision I’ve ever had to make, and certainly not one that I took lightly, but it was necessary for my happiness and creative integrity.”

It’s a major bummer, but not the end of the world! DiMartino went on to stress that he is not throwing in the towel with regards to the franchise as a whole, and is committed to continuing to tell the story of the Avatar universe. While he doesn’t know what the future holds, he once again turned to Iroh’s wisdom. “Sometimes life is like this dark tunnel. You can’t always see the light at the end of the tunnel, but if you just keep moving you will come to a better place.”

(featured image: Nickelodeon)