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Robert Falconer/Netflix
The results are in, and Netflix Avatar the last airbender seems to be a success.
The live-action adaptation topped the streamer’s weekly English-language television chart with 21.2 million views in its opening weekend. According to Netflix, it reached the Top 10 in 92 countries. The Swedish film about natural disasters ousted it from the most watched title of the week. The abyss.
That’s a strong performance for the eight-episode series, which was another big change for Netflix as it continues to dive into anime-inspired content. In fact, Avatar managed to overcome One piece on its debut weekend.
The same as One piece, Netflix was working flat out to launch the series, partnering with Serena Williams and even taking over the Las Vegas Sphere. Until now, the Avatar The global social campaign has reached 1.53 billion impressions, which is on par with both. One piece as well as the hit Netflix series Wednesday. The main trailer alone has racked up 85 million views to date, while the #AvatarTheLastAirbender hashtag has generated 1 billion global views on TikTok in the past week.
Avatar marks Netflix’s second successful live-action anime adaptation, after a rocky start in the genre with its adaptation of Shinichirō Watanabe’s classic anime. bebop cowboy. While die-hard fans of any animated series are likely to have a few things to say about their live-action counterparts, the streamer seems to be finding a groove when it comes to how to bring these stories to life on the small screen.
“We are trying to make a program for as many viewers as possible. That doesn’t mean we’re going to leave anything behind from the animated series. There are no more intentional deviations to make it acceptable to a wider audience.” Avatar executive producer and director Jabbar Raisani told Deadline. “I think it’s really about trying to be as faithful as possible to the animated series, but also knowing that we have to fit it into this eight-episode driving narrative that keeps us streaming.”
Aside from the missing story elements, which are obviously necessary when adapting a 20-episode animated television season, one of the biggest changes audiences might notice is the tone.
“Intrinsically there has to be a change in tone as you move towards live action, because the things that work in anime won’t necessarily work with real people,” Raisani explained.
While animation can often boast a more exaggerated tone, that’s not possible when it comes to live action.
“One of the things I did, specifically thinking about directing, was working with the actors on different versions of the take. So with Sokka, with his humor, for example, we would do a version that was the flattest read, and then we would get bigger and bigger and cheesier and more exaggerated,” Raisani said. “Ian was excellent at giving a range. That allowed us to say in the post: ‘he’s okay, let’s be funny’ or ‘we can go further’ or ‘oh man he’s starting to break tone now and it feels cartoonish.’ He doesn’t feel like he’s on the same show as everyone else.’”
Something viewers may notice that stays true to the animated series are the dynamic camera movements, many of which come directly from the source material.
Raisani described a scene from Episode 4 in which Aang does a backflip over a rock. Not only does the scene come from the animated series, but so does the shot used to capture it.
“I literally looked at the animated painting (and said), ‘Okay, we want to make this literal painting but with real people,'” he said.
It’s a bit preemptive to say whether the series will end up among Netflix’s most popular, as the series will have a 91-day release window and would need more than 83 million views to achieve the feat. However, it certainly bodes well for a renewal. The good news is that the creative team seems eager to expand the story and address anything that may have been missing from Season 1.
“There are things we filmed that I love that aren’t in the show. There are things that I love that we filmed and they just didn’t fit,” Raisani said. As a fan of the original animated series, he knows that audiences might be craving more than what they were able to include in the first season.
“If we have another season, then we certainly will have those things, because I know what we missed now and I know how to do it better the second time,” he said, adding: “The animated series is a really good guide… to where it can go. the show”.
More specifically, Raisani said he is already exploring new ways of filming scenes involving curvatures that would give the actor more agency on set and, in turn, make the final product feel more organic. He noted fire control as one of the most difficult elements to master and explained that each actor had a light in their hands to emulate fire, but they couldn’t manipulate it themselves, which presented some restrictions.
“If they could activate their own bending… I think we would have a smoother product,” he reflected. “So things like that you just have to try and then learn and then do it again, but better than the last time.”