Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko have both announced they are leaving Netflix's live-action remake of Avatar: The Last Airbender, citing prolonged creative differences between themselves and the streaming service.
DiMartino wrote in a leveled personal blog post titled "An open letter to Avatar: The Last Airbender fans": “"In June of this year, after two years of development work, Bryan Konietzko and I made the difficult decision to leave the production… In a joint announcement for the series, Netflix said that it was committed to honoring our vision for this retelling and to supporting us on creating the series. And we expressed how excited we were for the opportunity to be at the helm. Unfortunately, things did not go as we had hoped."
Konietzko on the other hand did not hold back in expressing his frustration. "When Netflix brought me on board to run this series alongside Mike two years ago, they made a very public promise to support our vision. Unfortunately, there was no follow-through on that promise," he wrote, then calling Netflix’s studios a "negative and unsupportive environment."
Planning to continue the show, Netflix released a statement saying: "We have complete respect and admiration for Michael and Bryan and the story that they created in the Avatar animated series. Although they have chosen to depart the live-action project, we are confident in the creative team and their adaptation."
Netflix has not yet announced who will take over as showrunner for the series.