Madam Slay
Into every generation a slayer is born
Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender has a production start date, location, and showrunner confirmed by an official source:
This news comes from Production Weekly, an official film industry paid-subscription publication that lists current and upcoming productions (for the purposes of applying to jobs, for example). This is a legitimate industry source and so this news can be considered confirmed.
As I mentioned, Production Weekly is a paid subscription, so I won’t be posting the actual listing. However, it does contain the above three pieces of information as well as a bit more: stuff we already knew like the production companies involved (Netflix, Nickelodeon, and Rideback), the producers from Rideback, internal production name, etc.
It also has a description of the show which is pretty funny, it goes in-depth on kind of random details like how there are “three pre-industrialized nations” (water, earth, air) and one industrialized (fire), and how the Avatar’s opposite element is the hardest to master, but nothing about characters or events. It’s basically just a little worldbuilding intro about the four elements and nations, it doesn’t even get to the Fire Nation attacking or who the Avatar is or the fact that they disappeared.
The only other thing of note is that the show seems to be officially titled “Avatar: The Last Airbender” from the title of the listing, but in the description it says just “The Last Airbender takes place in […]”.
We can now go a bit more depth in the new pieces of info we have.
Location:
The show will start filming in Vancouver, Canada. This is interesting because it matches up with reports we got a looong time ago– two different reports, in fact:
First was a VFX test leak in September 2019, which I confirmed was real by speaking with the company who was doing the test. The leaker, who was on set for the VFX tests, said that “Word on set was that Netflix was planning to film most of the show on-location in Vancouver and Hawaii.”
The second was an offhand comment from Michaela Murphy (the original voice actress of Toph) in October 2019 who had met up with Bryke, back when they were still involved with the show, in May 2019. She said she was “pretty sure it’s going to all be done up in Canada.”
So not only is this now confirmed, but we also have a sense for how long it has been the plan. The show was announced in September 2018. By May or September 2019, it was already planned to film in Vancouver. In the above link you can also see that they were apparently supposed to start filming in early 2020. That obviously didn’t happen, as it’s now March 2021 and they have only finally made it official to start in August 2021. But, in all that time, this part of the plan has not changed.
As for Hawaii, it would still make sense that for the tropical Fire Nation, they would need a location like that as it’s one of the few types of environment the Vancouver area can’t provide.
For the Water Tribes, I am currently guessing that they will be filmed on a sound stage with virtual production. This is based on this early post from Bryke as well as one of the leaked VFX tests being an icy, snowy environment.
Besides those two extremes, again, most stuff can be done in the various landscapes and environments around Vancouver. (I just personally hope they still take care to show the climate and environment changing with latitude, as they travel from pole to equator to pole.)
Date:
Again: August 16th, 2021. It’s a concrete, specific date– a Monday– and I get the sense that with that specificity, and being listed in Production Weekly, this is more-or-less finalized. However, I don’t have any insight into how often things like this change when they go in Production Weekly. It’s also listed as the show’s “status”, so that also could mean it could change. Basically, take it being final with a grain of salt.
However, assuming that date will not change, that leaves exactly five months and one day between now and when they’re supposed to start production. We can assume that internal stuff like scripts, costuming, set designs, etc. are well under way or done. The main public-facing things needed for filming are actors and directors. It’s possible that directors have also been hired already, but actors is another interesting aspect of this.
They originally announced that there would be open casting– meaning anyone from the public can audition and they will publicly announce where and when to apply. Again, I’m not an expert on these specifics of the industry, but I feel like five months is maybe not enough time to do that. Or maybe it is! I’m really not sure. If it is, I would guess that it will be announced quite soon. If not, then it’s possible this changed with the change of showrunners and all that. In that case, casting would be done the normal way, in secret, and could already be well under way as well.
This is the one part where I feel like the timelines are a little odd, but maybe I just don’t have the context and five months (or less, since they haven’t announced it yet) is plenty of time.
Showrunner:
Albert Kim is listed as the “showrunner”. He has had the following credits, from most recent to oldest:
Sleepy Hollow - executive producer (basically showrunner), writer
Nikita - co-executive producer, writer
Leverage - executive story editor, writer
Dirt - writer
All of these are network/cable TV shows, so this will be his first streaming series.
This lines up with an unsourced rumor from last month. I would personally still take any other aspects of rumors with a grain of salt– it’s not uncommon for part of a report to be based on something real, like the showrunner in this case, but other parts to be incorrect.
Thank you to What’s on Netflix for connecting me with this info!
This news comes from Production Weekly, an official film industry paid-subscription publication that lists current and upcoming productions (for the purposes of applying to jobs, for example). This is a legitimate industry source and so this news can be considered confirmed.
As I mentioned, Production Weekly is a paid subscription, so I won’t be posting the actual listing. However, it does contain the above three pieces of information as well as a bit more: stuff we already knew like the production companies involved (Netflix, Nickelodeon, and Rideback), the producers from Rideback, internal production name, etc.
It also has a description of the show which is pretty funny, it goes in-depth on kind of random details like how there are “three pre-industrialized nations” (water, earth, air) and one industrialized (fire), and how the Avatar’s opposite element is the hardest to master, but nothing about characters or events. It’s basically just a little worldbuilding intro about the four elements and nations, it doesn’t even get to the Fire Nation attacking or who the Avatar is or the fact that they disappeared.
The only other thing of note is that the show seems to be officially titled “Avatar: The Last Airbender” from the title of the listing, but in the description it says just “The Last Airbender takes place in […]”.
We can now go a bit more depth in the new pieces of info we have.
Location:
The show will start filming in Vancouver, Canada. This is interesting because it matches up with reports we got a looong time ago– two different reports, in fact:
First was a VFX test leak in September 2019, which I confirmed was real by speaking with the company who was doing the test. The leaker, who was on set for the VFX tests, said that “Word on set was that Netflix was planning to film most of the show on-location in Vancouver and Hawaii.”
The second was an offhand comment from Michaela Murphy (the original voice actress of Toph) in October 2019 who had met up with Bryke, back when they were still involved with the show, in May 2019. She said she was “pretty sure it’s going to all be done up in Canada.”
So not only is this now confirmed, but we also have a sense for how long it has been the plan. The show was announced in September 2018. By May or September 2019, it was already planned to film in Vancouver. In the above link you can also see that they were apparently supposed to start filming in early 2020. That obviously didn’t happen, as it’s now March 2021 and they have only finally made it official to start in August 2021. But, in all that time, this part of the plan has not changed.
As for Hawaii, it would still make sense that for the tropical Fire Nation, they would need a location like that as it’s one of the few types of environment the Vancouver area can’t provide.
For the Water Tribes, I am currently guessing that they will be filmed on a sound stage with virtual production. This is based on this early post from Bryke as well as one of the leaked VFX tests being an icy, snowy environment.
Besides those two extremes, again, most stuff can be done in the various landscapes and environments around Vancouver. (I just personally hope they still take care to show the climate and environment changing with latitude, as they travel from pole to equator to pole.)
Date:
Again: August 16th, 2021. It’s a concrete, specific date– a Monday– and I get the sense that with that specificity, and being listed in Production Weekly, this is more-or-less finalized. However, I don’t have any insight into how often things like this change when they go in Production Weekly. It’s also listed as the show’s “status”, so that also could mean it could change. Basically, take it being final with a grain of salt.
However, assuming that date will not change, that leaves exactly five months and one day between now and when they’re supposed to start production. We can assume that internal stuff like scripts, costuming, set designs, etc. are well under way or done. The main public-facing things needed for filming are actors and directors. It’s possible that directors have also been hired already, but actors is another interesting aspect of this.
They originally announced that there would be open casting– meaning anyone from the public can audition and they will publicly announce where and when to apply. Again, I’m not an expert on these specifics of the industry, but I feel like five months is maybe not enough time to do that. Or maybe it is! I’m really not sure. If it is, I would guess that it will be announced quite soon. If not, then it’s possible this changed with the change of showrunners and all that. In that case, casting would be done the normal way, in secret, and could already be well under way as well.
This is the one part where I feel like the timelines are a little odd, but maybe I just don’t have the context and five months (or less, since they haven’t announced it yet) is plenty of time.
Showrunner:
Albert Kim is listed as the “showrunner”. He has had the following credits, from most recent to oldest:
Sleepy Hollow - executive producer (basically showrunner), writer
Nikita - co-executive producer, writer
Leverage - executive story editor, writer
Dirt - writer
All of these are network/cable TV shows, so this will be his first streaming series.
This lines up with an unsourced rumor from last month. I would personally still take any other aspects of rumors with a grain of salt– it’s not uncommon for part of a report to be based on something real, like the showrunner in this case, but other parts to be incorrect.
Thank you to What’s on Netflix for connecting me with this info!
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