Avatar: The Last Airbender’ took the world of television by storm and beat titles such as ‘One Day’, ‘Love is Blind Season 6’, ‘Can I Tell You a Secret?’, ‘Griselda’, ‘Warrior’ and ‘Resident Alien’. According to ‘Collider’, more than 22.2 million viewers watched this live-action adaptation of the Nickelodeon classic on Netflix just four days after its premiere. It became the most-watched original title on the streaming platform.
Its often expected that a widely successful hit like that would have a smooth sail retaining its original cast, on the screen and behind. Well that’s not the case here as Albert Kim, who served as showrunner on season 1 after the original Avatar creators left the project, is now stepping down from his post. In his place, co-executive producers Christine Boylan and Jabbar Raisani are taking the reins for at least the next two seasons. The Hollywood Reporter reported that he’s expected to sign a development deal with Disney+, which will include work on the Percy Jackson series.
While many think that this simply is a personal move for growth, it is also pretty widely speculated that this was motivated by the stalemate in the viewership after the initial release. Critics and Netflix Pundits have widely expressed their contrasting opinions on the show , while some consider it at par or even better than the classic One Piece while others claim that it’s going to fade from the conversation in two weeks!
The viewership drop doesn’t bode well for the big-budget series, as Netflix’s largest titles typically grow in viewership between their debuts and their first full weeks of of availability. For example, Netflix’s live-action adaptation of the manga “One Piece” debuted with 18.5 million views in its first four days, then held No. 1 with 19.3 million views the week after. It’s pretty interesting to see how things pan out for the show amidst the various media speculations!
