Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender Movies To Use CGI Animation

Nickelodeon’s upcoming Avatar: The Last Airbender movies will be animated using CGI instead of its traditional 2D animation.

Avatar: The Last Airbender has been branching out and expanding into new projects at different studios. These include the Nickelodeon film and tv series projects as well as Netflix’s live-action take on the beloved anime.

In a new interview with ViacomCBS, Nickelodeon CEO Brian Robbins has revealed that upcoming Avatar films will be animated with CGI.

…And one of the other big projects that we’re working on, on the theatrical front is Avatar. We signed a deal to bring the original creators of Avatar back into the studios. They started Avatar Studios, and they’re well on their way in development on a series of CG films and a new Avatar series.

Brian Robbins

The recently established Avatar Studios will produce new avatar content for Nickelodeon, Paramount+, and theatrical releases. The studios are run by Avatar co-creators and executive producers Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko as co-chief creative officers.

When asked about the new ‘talent’ joining the team for the project, Robbins did not go into much detail about it. The series seems to be in the early stages, or maybe Robbins just didn’t want to spoil any major spoilers.

Ramsay Naito, who is the president of Nick Animation, she’s just somebody that is really loved in the animation community and people actually really love Nick. They have something in their heart where they really do want to work here on the animation side or on the live-action side for this brand. People grew up on certain shows. They have fond memories of the brand, and they want to do business with us.

Brian Robbins

CGI animation seems futuristic and adaptive to modern times, that’ll help attract a future generation of Avatar fans. However, not all fans would be happy with this change in animation style as Avatar’s original style is the traditional 2D animation.

The Avatar animated series ran from 2005 to 2008, with Legend of Korra airing for four seasons from 2012-2014. A large part of its success was due to how much attention to detail went into the animation to show complex sequences.

Although Robbins’ statement does indicate that it is only the films that will use CGI animation and not the show.

Another Netflix live-action series also titled Avatar: The Last Airbender, seems to be progressing faster with showrunners and the main cast already announced. It will star Gordon Cormier as Aang, Kiawentiio as Katara, Ian Ousley as Sokka, and Dallas Liu as Zuko.

This project has been a long time coming, as it was first announced in September 2018. DiMartino and Konietzko were also attached to the project. However, they announced last year that they were no longer involved before making a deal with Nickelodeon on Avatar Studios’ projects.

The previous attempt at live-action Avatar series came with M Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender (and if given the chance, fans would even delete this one from existence).

Netflix might have to walk on eggshells and analyze where the 2010 film went wrong. Regardless, it would be interesting to see the direction the live-action, as well as the CGI films and animated series, will take.

About Avatar: The Last Airbender

Avatar: The Last Airbender is an American animated television series created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. It aired on Nickelodeon from 2005 to 2008, for three seasons.

The series follows a young boy named Aang, the last surviving member from his nation and the current Avatar. He sets on a journey with his friends to save the world from the grips of the autocratic Fire Nation.