Children of Blood & Bone trailer is an Avatar: Last Airbender fan dream

For nearly two decades, Avatar: The Last Airbender fans have imagined a version of the story where Zuko and Katara ended up together. The first trailer for Children of Blood and Bone, released Tuesday, looks ready to bring that Zutara fantasy to life.

Paramount’s adaptation of Tomi Adeyemi’s best-selling novel has its own persecuted magical people, a hero trained in martial arts with a staff who can also wield magic, a tyrannical monarch who wants to wipe out all magic, and — most importantly — a conflicted crown prince who longs for his father’s approval while secretly yearning to do the right thing. Prince Inan (Damson Idris) is functionally identical to Zuko and is sent by his father, King Saran (Chiwetel Ejiofor), to hunt down the magical chosen one. Except instead of a bald boy, his target is a white-haired girl named Zélie (Thuso Mbedu). To Avatar fans, she feels a lot like Aang and Katara fused into a single character.

Children of Blood and Bone takes place in Orïsha, a West African-inspired kingdom where magic once flowed through the maji. King Saran violently suppressed it, capturing (and probably killing) Zélie’s mother. Early in the trailer, we see Saran describe magic as a “festering disease” to his son. Yet Inan openly wonders about the kind of king he wants to be when he inevitably ascends the throne. The action-packed trailer sees Zélie train under Mama Agba (Viola Davis) for years in a seaside village before reawakening her magical powers.

The biggest Avatar fan dream arrives around two minutes into the trailer during a swoonworthy scene in which Inan and Zélie are shown in a moonlit, water-filled cavern. With a warm smile, he caresses her face and says, “You have unraveled me.” Then we see an epic scene of them fighting side by side with Zélie wielding wind magic to knock opponents down.

That’s right: This time, the Zuko figure might actually fall in love with the magical hero he was supposed to stop rather than become best friends.

Adeyemi herself has previously described Children of Blood and Bone as an African answer to The Last Airbender. And while there are many parallels, it’s the furthest thing from a simple remix. You could pinpoint dozens of crucial differences: Zélie is a young woman, and she’s not the last of her kind. Magic isn’t delineated across cultural borders, and it’s been completely dormant for years. And while Zélie does seem to wield air magic quite a bit, the soft magic systems in Children of Blood and Bone feel rather open-ended.

The story’s mythology also draws from Yoruba culture, and the trailer makes it look like an enormous fantasy blockbuster, complete with elaborate costumes, fantastical creatures, massive battles, and a cast that also includes Amandla Stenberg, Tosin Cole, Cynthia Erivo, and Lashana Lynch.

Children of Blood and Bone arrives in theaters and IMAX on Jan. 15, 2027. For Avatar fans who spent years wishing Katara had unraveled Zuko, the first trailer makes a compelling pitch.