Right now on my Netflix I can go to a category called Asian Action Dramas. It's got 50 or 60 entries. Asian TV dramas has about 40. Romantic asian movies about 40. Award winning asian movies, less than 20, one of which is freaking Milo and Otis.
Meanwhile I put in "action movies" or "tv drama" or ""romantic film" I get hundreds of hits on those.
I am a fan of the culture, I've watched a ton of asian film, lots of anime, have no problem with subtitles. I watched One Cut of the Dead just last weekend (great flik). I've seen more than a few asian film in theaters. 4 of my 10 all time favorite films are asian in origin. (Cagliostro, Mononoke, Drunken Master 2, Fish Story) I'm on a freaking One Piece discussion board for the last 14 year of my life for crying out loud.
And with almost all of those entries on Netflix, unless its something I recognize like IP Man or it has Jackie Chan on it or the title is something I already recognize, I just glance at them and go "yeah its an asian movie, don't care, don't feel like doing sustained subtitles right now. What else is there?" and then brush it off and pay it zero attention. And I am actually already predisposed to liking these things, generally have no problem with subtitles and have a history of enjoying them!
A fully authentic looking Last Airbender with an all asian cast is going to get swept into the same category and be assumed to be the same kind of knock off and cheap production as say, the Full Metal Alchemist or Bleach film. Whatever the actual quality of the product it'll have people assuming bad wigs and very cheap CG effects and the dreaded subtitles. Or like the Death Note thing, a bad cash in that misses the point entirely. That instantly narrows its potential market and base in America, however true or false it might be..
Yeah, it sucks. But you want a company to spend tens of millions on your product, for several years in a row, you want it to be something that can stay on the front page for months, not instantly get pushed to the special interests bin.
ONE white guy, or white people in the background, maybe even an entirely new character, so not messing with anyone established, lets them keep it in the general section. All asian cast its suddenly a subcategory. So I absolutely understand why Netflix wants that change.
And I understand why the creators want it to be all asian. And I know how important it is to fight FOR that in a market that just defaults to white english person as the norm. I know it has to be thought about and fought for. They're BOTH in the right.
(If Sokka and Katara are lily white again like the movie then yeah, burn it all down. No excuse on that one.)
Yeah its incredibly stupid Matt Damon is in The Great Wall, and Scarlet Johansen is in Ghost in the Shell. I agree its incredibly dumb and out of place, and an all asian cast would be better for the actual product. But for actually selling and promoting that product?
So compromise somewhere in the middle. In this case, if the racial thing is your main concern, then instead of pushing for more budget, agree to a budget cut. Less investment, less risk, studio is more willing to play ball. Look how well it worked out for Deadpool, for instance. They couldn't do elaborate cgi loaded bullet fight sequences… so instead they had a gag of Deadpool leaving all his weapons behind and did something different. Look at the first Rocky movie. Every single major memorable quiet moment that I love about Rocky, like them skating alone in the ice rink, or Rocky's trunks being the wrong color on the poster, were a result of low budget and having to think outside the box to accommodate their limitations. The original Star Wars is infinitely better for Lucas's vision being handicapped by technology and budget.
So if in trade for getting the artistic vision you want, you have to have one less fight scene or one less fireball thrown, or if you have to have Appa and Momo off camera a little more, then do what you need to do. Then if its a hit you can fight for more money in season 2. (For guys that should know first hand after Khorra that studios will CUT budgets and deny you entire episodes at the drop of the hat, they REALLY should know better.)
Even Game of Thrones, one of the most successful and profit making shows of all time, didn't have unlimited budget and had to make choices somewhere.