This announcement doesn’t alleviate my worries after original showrunners Mike DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko left the project, but I have to praise a great decision when I see one.
For context, Netflix announced a live-action adaptation of Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender and cited heavily how involved the original creators, DiMartino and Konietzko were. That was in 2018; fast-forward to 2020 and troubles were afoot. Creative differences, which is an unhelpful buzzword that doesn’t help us understand anything, are what the creative duo cited as their reasoning for ultimately leaving the project.
On DiMartino’s personal website, he posted a message when they left in 2020, and while it’s assuring to fans to see that there’s no bad blood between Netflix and the creators, it’s cryptic enough that we don’t have details to really sink into.
Add in the fact that the last live-action adaptation was poorly constructed and received…to say the least, and franchise fans are right to be worried. The only saving grace so far has been that the castings we’ve seen appear to be on the right track.
Enter Daniel Dae Kim
Already an Avatar veteran, as he voiced General Fong of the Earth Kingdom in the original series, and industrialist Hiroshi Sato in Legend of Korra, Kim will have an amazing opportunity to utilize his voice acting skills along with his presence as a veteran TV series, from being a regular on Lost, Hawaii 5-0, and most recently on The Good Doctor and New Amsterdam.
Kim isn’t the first choice I think of when it comes to playing a villain as conniving and power-hungry as Ozai, but that honestly has more to do with Mark Hamill voicing him in the animated series. Those are big shoes to fill and that’s not what this adaptation should be about. Kim can certainly make the role his own and while it will be a while before he’ll actually be menacing the Avatar (assuming they follow the same 3 season structure from the show, Ozai shows up more prominently in the last half of 2, and fully in 3), I think this casting has the best potential to blow us away.
Now, if we can just get the cast members from that ghastly movie adaptation to play the Ember Island Players parts, we’ll be set!
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