Lessons from the Avatar cycle: how to “remake” content that matters

By Dyllan Thweatt, Copywriter 🇺🇸

In the last two decades, production companies have taken a page out of the content and creative marketing playbook and asked the question, “What do we already have that we can repurpose?” This has brought audiences a wave of live-action remakes of animated classics. Unfortunately, these companies have skipped an important part of the repurposing process. Many of these remakes fail to reuse the original assets to create something uniquely interesting or compelling.

The Avatar returns

I grew up watching Avatar: The Last Airbender during its original run on Nickelodeon. For those unfamiliar, the series takes place in a world where some people have the power to “bend” one of the four elements—water, earth, fire or air. The story follows Aang, a young Avatar, a Dalai Lama-esque spiritual leader who is the only person who can bend all four elements, and his friends along their journey to save the world. I saw myself reflected in many of the characters in the show, and many others served as moral guides for me as an impressionable pre-teen. It has left an outsized impact on my life.

And I’m far from the show’s sole fan. It premiered to nearly universal acclaim; it currently sits at 9.3/10 rating on iMDb and 100% on RottenTomatoes. In contrast, Netflix’s recent live-action remake scored a 7.4/10 and a 59% (we will not speak of the 2010 film with a 4/10 and a 5%). I think the remake earned its 7.4. It is a C-minus student that unsuccessfully copied an A-plus peer.

Even during pre-production, there was some concern that this would be the outcome. Alarm bells sounded in August 2020 when the original show’s creators parted ways with Netflix because “there was no follow-through on the [promise to support their vision].” I’ve now seen that lack of promise for myself. The plot feels rushed despite having nearly the same total runtime as the original (the animated series’s first season comes in at 477 minutes compared to Netflix’s 430); emotional beats are forced, not earned; important supporting characters are one-dimensional or cut entirely. 

After I finished the season, I asked myself two questions: “Would I choose to watch this instead of rewatching the original?” and “Have I gained anything from watching this new version?” Since I answered no to both questions, I paused to reflect on what it would take for the answers to be yes, and I thought about times I’d repurposed or recreated something.

Retelling shouldn’t mean repeating

In copy, content, and brand writing, the goal is to sell, compel, or otherwise drive engagement. When marketing teams create something they’re especially proud of, the hope is that that content can be repurposed into new formats for new audiences or new purposes. You can build a full quarterly strategy around a 30-page ebook that can be flipped into an infographic, five blogs, a dozen social media posts, and email blasts for weeks to come. 

Each of these new pieces should still offer something unique. Otherwise, whichever audience finds a piece is left with a watered-down version of the original. There’s no incentive for audiences to engage with future content, and those that found the “remade” pieces are missing valuable insights from the work.

Follow the Avatar cycle

The mantle of the Avatar is generational. When an Avatar dies, a new Avatar is born into the next element in the cycle—water then earth then fire then air. This person comes with their own strengths, weaknesses, and challenges to overcome during their lifetime tenure as the bridge between the human world and the spirit world. 

Netflix had the opportunity to follow the Avatar cycle’s approach to creating something new from something familiar. They had great content to build on, adapt, and change to create a story that would resonate with existing fans and attract new ones. A prime example of this approach is the Oscar-award-winning Mad Max: Fury Road. It was both a reboot of an old franchise and, at the same time, a sequel to its predecessor. 

The team didn’t even have to look so far afield to find its spiritual successor to claim the Avatar mantle. In 2012, the Avatar team created a sequel series, The Legend of Korra, that expanded on the lore of the Avatar universe, built on existing stories and characters and offered new twists on established ideas. 

The Netflix series could have boldly deviated from Aang’s original narrative while still preserving the rules and morals of the world to create something new. Instead, the live-action Netflix series is a half-hearted duplicate of its source material. It simply stripped down a nearly perfectly executed story for the sake of creating a version in a different medium. 

Perhaps they thought a new medium would reach a new or larger audience (something we often try in the marketing world). But the original series topped Netflix’s viewership charts when it came to the streaming service in 2020, more than 12 years after its original finale. The original series still resonates with audiences. 

If a piece of content is successful, it’s important to take the time to understand why and build on that as you repurpose the source. Simply remaking something does both your hard work and your audience’s interest a disservice. Capture and keep their attention by sharing new thoughts on the subject. 

No one wants to crank out a C-minus blog series adapted from an A-plus whitepaper for the sake of it. It might take time to understand what an A-plus blog series or email campaign will look like, but if your audience already loves your work, they’ll want to come back.

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