Netflix’s Large-Budget Fantasy Gamble Pays Off With Massive Debut

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Netflix’s Large-Budget Fantasy Gamble Pays Off With Massive Debut

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Even though Netflix cut its losses, if there were any, by canceling the sci-fi series The Boroughs, the streamer seems to be going all in on another big-budget project. The project in question returned with a highly anticipated second season this week, following a debut season that divided audiences and critics in 2024. Instead of making fans wait another two years between seasons, Netflix produced the second and third installments of the show back-to-back. What this probably means is that the show’s next installment will debut later this year. This is also a strategy that streamers employ when they want to wrap things up quickly, or when they don’t want the cast to age too rapidly between installments. Alternatively, they might greenlight a feature-length climactic chapter to tie up the loose ends. All of this is to say that The Boroughs being canceled after a single well-reviewed and highly-watched season is irregular.

On the other hand, it’s still unclear if Netflix’s big-budget fantasy bet has paid off fully. The show we’re talking about is Avatar: The Last Airbender, which returned with a second season this week and immediately jumped ahead of the streamer’s holdover hits on the viewership charts. However, the show doesn’t seem to have registered an improvement as far as the critical response is concerned. The first season holds a 62% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, while the second season has settled at a marginally higher 67%.





















































Collider Exclusive · Middle-earth Quiz
Which Lord of the Rings
Character Are You?

One Quiz · Ten Questions · Your Fate Revealed

The road goes ever on. From the green hills of the Shire to the fires of Mount Doom, every soul in Middle-earth carries a destiny. Ten questions stand between you and the truth of who you are. Answer honestly — the One Ring has a way of revealing what we most want to hide.

💍Frodo

🌿Samwise

👑Aragorn

🔥Gandalf

🏹Legolas

⚒️Gimli

👁️Sauron

🪨Gollum

01

You are handed a responsibility that could destroy you. What do you do?
The weight of the world falls on unlikely shoulders.




02

Your closest companion is heading into terrible danger. You:
True loyalty is revealed not in comfort, but in crisis.




03

Enormous power is within your reach. Your instinct is:
Power corrupts — but only those who reach for it.




04

What does “home” mean to you?
Where we long to return reveals who we truly are.




05

When a battle is upon you, your approach is:
War reveals what we are made of — whether we like it or not.




06

Someone comes to you for advice in their darkest hour. You:
Wisdom is not knowing all the answers — it’s knowing which questions to ask.




07

How do you see yourself, honestly?
Self-knowledge is the most hazardous kind.




08

Which of these best describes your relationship with the natural world?
Middle-earth speaks to those who know how to listen.




09

You encounter a wretched, pitiable creature who has done terrible things. You:
How we treat the fallen reveals the height of our character.




10

When the quest is over and the songs are sung, what do you hope they say about you?
In the end, we are all just stories.




The Fellowship Has Spoken
Your Place in Middle-earth

The scores below reveal your true character. Your highest number is your match. Even a tie tells a story — the Fellowship was never made of uncomplicated people.

💍
Frodo

🌿
Samwise

👑
Aragorn

🔥
Gandalf

🏹
Legolas

⚒️
Gimli

👁️
Sauron

🪨
Gollum

You carry something bulky — and you carry it alone, even when you don’t have to. You were not born for greatness, and that is precisely why greatness chose you. Your courage is not the roaring, sword-swinging kind; it is peaceful, stubborn, and terrifying in its refusal to quit. The Ring weighs on you more than anyone can see, and still you walk toward the fire. That is not weakness. That is the rarest kind of strength there is.

You are, without question, the best of them. Not the most powerful, not the most celebrated — but the most necessary. Your loyalty is not a trait; it is a force of nature. You would carry the person you love up the slopes of Mount Doom if it came to that, and we both know you’d do it without being asked. The world needs more people like you, and the world is lucky it has even one.

You were born to lead, and you have spent years running from it. The crown is yours by right, but you know better than anyone that right means nothing without the will and the worthiness to back it up. You are tempered by loss, shaped by long roads, and defined by a code of honour you hold to even when no one is watching. When you finally step forward, the world shifts. Because it was always waiting for you.

You have seen more than you let on, and you say less than you know — which is exactly as it should be. You are a catalyst: you do not fight the battles yourself, you ignite the people who can. Your wisdom comes not from books but from an age of watching what happens when it is ignored. You arrive precisely when you mean to, and your presence alone changes what is possible. A wizard is never delayed.

Graceful, perceptive, and almost preternaturally placid under pressure — you see things others miss and act before others react. You do not need to make a scene to be remarkable; your presence speaks for itself. You are devoted to those you choose to stand beside, and that choice is not made lightly. You have lived long enough to know that the most attractive things in this world are also the most frail, and that is why you fight to protect them.

You are deafening, proud, and absolutely formidable — and beneath all of that is one of the most fiercely devoted hearts in Middle-earth. You don’t do anything by half measures. Your friendships are forged like iron, your grudges run as deep as mines, and your courage in battle is the kind that makes legends. You came into this fellowship suspicious of everyone and ended it willing to die for an elf. That is not a petite thing. That is everything.

You think in centuries and act in absolutes. Order, dominion, control — not because you are cruel by nature, but because you have decided that the world left to itself always falls apart, and you are the only one with the vision and the will to hold it together. You were not always this. Something was lost, or taken, or betrayed, and the version of you that stands now is the answer to that wound. The tragedy is that you’re not entirely wrong — just entirely too far gone to course-correct.

You are a study in contradiction — pitiable and hazardous, cunning and broken, capable of both cruelty and something that once resembled love. You are defined by loss: of innocence, of self, of the one thing that gave your existence meaning. Two voices war inside you constantly, and the tragedy is that the better one sometimes wins, just not often enough, and never at the right moment. You are a warning, yes — but also a mirror. We are all a little Gollum, given the right ring and enough time.

Netflix’s Live-Action Anime Remakes Have Been Hit-Or-Miss

This doesn’t exactly move the needle for the streamer as it builds toward the third (and potentially final) season. Avatar: The Last Airbender is the live-action remake of the anime original, which aired on Nickelodeon for three seasons from 2005 to 2008. Netflix has also produced live-action remakes of Cowboy Bebop, which ended up being canceled after one season, and One Piece, which has aired two successful seasons so far. According to FlixPatrol, the second season of Avatar: The Last Airbender debuted at the number two spot on the global and domestic Netflix viewership charts, behind the holdover hit I Will Find You. Netflix will release official numbers next week, while Nielsen will provide a more in-depth look at how the show performed in around a month. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.


avatar-the-last-airbender-2024-tv-show-poster.jpg


Release Date

February 22, 2024

Network

Netflix

Showrunner

Albert Kim

Directors

Jet Wilkinson

Writers

Joshua Hale Fialkov, Christine Boylan

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