Albert Kim, the showrunner for Netflix’s live-action fantasy series Avatar: The Last Airbender, is moving on – and that means the show will enter its second season with its third showrunner in charge.
That may seem like a lot of showrunners for a show with only one season so far, but it was in development for a long time before it actually aired, with Netflix ordering it in 2018, six years before it finally made it to the screen.
Kim helmed the show since the creators of the original animated Avatar show, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, left in 2020; according to The Hollywood Reporter Kim felt it was time for something new after the long process of bringing the new live-action Avatar to the screen, and will be joining Disney Plus‘ Percy Jackson season 2 as an executive producer as well as developing new Disney projects.
Who’s helming The Last Airbender now?
Kim took over the show to “lay the foundation for season one”, The Hollywood Reporter says, suggesting that he felt that his role was to ensure that the creators’ vision was maintained. Now he’ll hand the reins over to co-executive producer Christine Boylan and executive producer Jabbar Raisani, both of whom were chosen to join the show by Kim.
According to the trade paper, Boylan’s credits include “Leverage, Castle, Once Upon a Time, The Punisher and, more recently, Poker Face and Citadel”, and she has been nominated for a Writers Guild of America award as part of the Poker Face team. Comic books are clearly in her blood: she’s written for both Marvel and DC, among others. And Raisani already executive produced the first season of Airbender and directed the third and fourth episodes too.
As we’ve previously reported, the show has attracted mixed reviews which had people worried about its future considering it also had such a protracted and troubled development process – but it’s been a big hit for Netflix: “Six days after all eight episodes premiered on Netflix, Avatar: The Last Airbender was confirmed to be a Netflix hit, with 21.2 million people tuning in to see what all of the fuss was about. It followed that up with another 19.9 million views a week later”. That means it’s been a bigger success than One Piece, the much-hyped fan-favorite adaptation.
Of course, given the history of Netflix cancelling shows, nothing is safe – but with Avatar confirmed for two more seasons already, it looks like it’s in solid hands for now.
