Nickelodeon Launches Avatar Studios for New Animated AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER Content
Nickelodeon has dropped a big bomb by opening up Avatar Studios. This is a new division designed to expand on the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra through animated series and movies. Original creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko will be helming Avatar Studios as co-chief creative officers. The content produced will become available via Paramount+, Nickelodeon’s linear and digital platforms, third-party platforms, and theaters. The first project in the works will be an animated theatrical film that is set to launch production later this year. Talking about the new division, Brian Robbins of ViacomCBS said:
Avatar: The Last Airbender and Korra have grown at least ten-fold in popularity since their original hit runs on Nickelodeon, and Ramsey Naito and I are incredibly excited to have Mike and Bryan’s genius talent on board to helm a studio devoted to expanding their characters and world into new content and formats for fans everywhere. Creator-driven stories and characters have long been the hallmarks of Nickelodeon, and Avatar Studios is a way to give Mike and Bryan the resources and runway to open up their imaginations even more and dive deeper into the action and mythology of Avatar as we simultaneously expand upon that world and the world of content available on Paramount+ and Nickelodeon.
DiMartino and Konietzko released the following statement:
It’s hard to believe it’s been 19 years since we created Avatar: The Last Airbender. But even after all that time, there are still many stories and time periods in Aang’s world that we are eager to bring to life. We are fortunate to have an ever-growing community of passionate fans that enjoys exploring the Avatarverse as much as we do. And with this new Avatar Studios venture we have an unparalleled opportunity to develop our franchise and its storytelling on a vast scale, in myriad exciting ways and mediums. We are exceedingly grateful to Brian Robbins and Ramsey Naito for their enthusiasm and respect for the Avatar property and us as its stewards. From the start, they’ve supported our ambitious plans and created a positive, proactive environment for us. We’re excited to be back at Nickelodeon where Avatar began, doing what we do best in the biggest way possible. We can’t wait to build the great teams and productions to make all of this fantasy a reality.
Wow. This is looking great for Avatar fans. I can’t help but wonder if this will have an impact on the live-action series being developed by Netflix. What stories do you hope we get to see? I would love to get little mini-series about some of the previous avatars.