ViacomCBS is relaunching their streaming service next year as Paramount+, the future home of Avatar shows and movies?

It’s been almost a year since our last post on the state of streaming, when Nickelodeon and Netflix announced a partnership to produce original animated films and series. (No Avatar stuff has come from this.)

At the time, the world of media was in a huge state of upheaval– Disney+ had just launched, and the other conglomerates had yet to catch up. The Avatar franchise’s owner, ViaconCBS, was in a weird spot. At the time, Viacom and CBS were still in the process of (re-)merging, and it was unclear what would happen to CBS’s existing, inconspicuous streaming service: CBS All Access.

Since then, ATLA and TLOK have both debuted on Netflix to HUGE fanfare, but they both also quietly came to CBS All Access as well. I have no idea what licensing deals lead to this, but it was certainly interesting due to the Nick-Netflix deal, the live-action ATLA series in production at Netflix (both started prior to the Viacom-CBS merger), and rumors that to have a “big” streaming service of their own, ViacomCBS might try to outright buy Netflix itself.

Well, that obviously didn’t happen. Today, ViacomCBS announced that they’ll be relaunching their streaming service in 2021 as a whole new thing: Paramount+. Like the other big ones, it’ll have the studio’s historic backlog of 100+ years of content, plus new originals. This is their big push to compete with Disney+, HBO Max, and Peacock (and Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Hulu, etc.), and… Netflix?

So we’re still in a weird spot with Nickelodeon originals apparently coming to Netflix (if that’s still happening…?), but Paramount+ now existing too and being the more obvious place for them.

One thing’s for sure, it seems that ATLA and TLOK will eventually come to live on Paramount+ permanently, with Aang featuring in the official intro video, and both shows obviously already being on CBS All Access in full. The Netflix placement is probably a temporary window and ViacomCBS will want their stuff back, like how Disney took the MCU movies back from Netflix to put them on Disney+ exclusively… eventually.

For this reason, it would make sense for any future animated shows or movies in the Avatar franchise to be Paramount+ originals as well, but I honestly can’t say that with any certainty because of the vague Nick-Netflix deal which we still don’t really know anything about. I guess we’ll find out!

A bit of speculation, but I’m guessing everyone involved (except Netflix lol) is kicking themselves for jumping the gun on the live-action ATLA series. If they had waited a bit, it probably would have been a flagship Paramount+ original, and I think it’s highly likely that whatever led to Bryke leaving (good or bad) wouldn’t have happened.

Anyway, if any new animated Avatar series are in the works, I’m keeping an eye out for them to be potentially included in launch announcements closer to the early 2021 Paramount+ debut. That’s definitely not to say the shows will premiere then, it would just be the perfect time to say they will exist and this is where they’ll be.

According to analytics firms, ATLA and TLOK are two of the three most popular shows currently on CBS All Access (source). Not animated shows, not non-originals… the most popular shows period.

Remember that Bryke doesn’t own Avatar, ViacomCBS does, and sooner or later they’ll want to cash in on its huge new popularity. I’m personally guessing sooner…

Only time will tell…