Avatar: The Last Airbender star Paul Sun-Hyung Lee has confirmed the official episode count for the upcoming live-action Netflix series.
During an interview on the Handsome Genius Club Radio Show podcast, Lee revealed that the first season of Netflix's live-action adaptation of Avatar would consist of eight hour-long episodes, contradicting previous reports that the season would run for 10 episodes.
With eight episodes running at 60 minutes each, Netflix's Avatar Season 1 will have a total runtime of 480 minutes. Interestingly, that is the exact same runtime as Book One: Water, the first season of Nickelodeon's original Avatar: The Last Airbender animated series, which ran for 20 episodes running at 24 minutes each.
In Netflix's Avatar, Lee is slated to portray the character of Uncle Iroh, who was famously voiced by the late, great Mako (Makoto Iwamatsu) in the first two seasons (Book One: Waterand Book Two: Earth) of the original Nickelodeon animated series. Greg Baldwin later took over the role for the show's third and final season (Book Three: Fire).
Avatar: The Last Airbender originally aired on Nickelodeon for a total of 61 episodes from 2005 to 2008. The series was met with critical acclaim and maintains a strong fanbase to this very day. That said, a notoriously-maligned film adaptation, simply titled The Last Airbender, did release in theaters in 2010.
The original Avatar cartoon was later followed up by a sequel series titled The Legend of Korra, which aired for 52 episodes across four seasons from 2012 to 2014. The first two seasons of Korra aired on Nickelodeon. Season 3 aired its first eight episodes on Nickelodeon before jumping to Nick.com for its final five. Nick.com was the home for the show's entire fourth and final season.
In 2018, Netflix announced a live-action series adaptation of the original Avatar: The Last Airbender. According to Avatar News, the series is currently in its fourth month of filming in Vancouver. Production is expected to last for a total of six months, meaning that the cast and crew have passed the halfway point.
In addition to Lee as Iroh, Netflix's live-action Avatar series stars Gordon Cormier as Aang, Kiawentiio Tarbell as Katara, Ian Ousley as Sokka, Dallas Liu as Zuko, Elizabeth Yu as Azula, Daniel Dae Kim as Fire Lord Ozai, Maria Zhang as Suki, Ken Leung as Commander Zhao, Lim Kay Siu as Gyatso, Yvonne Chapman as Avatar Kyoshi, Tamlyn Tomita as Yukari and Casey Camp-Horinek as Gran Gran. The first season will also reportedly feature the characters of Mai and Ty Lee, though no casting information regarding the two is currently available.
Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 1 does not currently have a premiere date.
Source: Handsome Genius Club Radio Show, via Avatar News
Comments