Fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender have a lot to look forward to, as Paramount and Nickelodeon announced at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival that a trilogy of animated films set in the Avatar universe are currently in the works.
According to Variety, the films are in development under Nickelodeon Animation’s Avatar Studios, which was formed back in 2021 to focus on creating original content based around the universe of 2005’s Avatar: The Last Airbender and its 2012 follow-up The Legend of Korra.
Series co-creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael DiMartino, who exited the production of Netflix’s live-action adaptation of the series citing ‘creative differences’, are producing the trilogy alongside producer Eric Coleman. The first still-untitled film in the trilogy will be directed by Lauren Montgomery, who worked on both the original Avatar and The Legend of Korra as a storyboard artist and supervising producer.
“As original creators Mike and Bryan expand the ‘Avatar’ universe with us, we’re keeping it all in the family with Lauren bringing the same kind of expert, beautiful work she did on the original series to her new directing duties on the forthcoming theatrical,” Ramsey Naito, president of animation & development at Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Animation, said in an announcement.
The last time we heard about Nickelodeon and Paramount’s plans to expand the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender was in February of last year, when an animated Avatar film was first announced during a Viacom investors’ call in the lead up to the launch of Paramount Plus.
