Shyamalan’s Last Airbender Set for 2010

Thursday, April 17, 2008
By: Ryan Ball

Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies have greenlit M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender, a live-action feature film based on the hit Nickelodeon animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender. The pic is slated to open in theaters over the Independence Day weekend in 2010, Friday, July 2 to be exact.

The word Avatar is curiously missing from the title, probably due to the fact that James Cameron is releasing a 3-D sci-fi movie titled Avatar in late 2009. The highly anticipated CG-laden flick from the Titanic director has nothing to do with the animated TV show.

Shyamalan burst onto the scene with the blockbuster supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense, and followed up with Unbreakable, Signs, The Village and Lady in the Water. He’s currently finishing The Happening, another film with a supernatural theme. He will direct and produce Airbender from a script he wrote himself. Joining him as producers are Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, who produced the Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park film franchises, Sam Mercer (The Sixth Sense, The Happening) and Scott Aversano (Failure to Launch, The School of Rock). Michael DiMartino and Brian Konietzko, the creators of the animated series, will serve as exec producers.

“I was drawn to the series because of its influences, one being Hayao Miyazaki,” says Shyamalan. “I’ve always been a huge fan of Miyazaki’s work. He is one of the greatest storytellers in the world and makes anime films in Japan. His combination of spirituality and supernatural elements have brought depth and meaning to his art form. In The Last Airbender, I see an opportunity to make a live-action version of a Miyazaki film.”

Like the series, the film will take place in a world where human civilization is divided into four nations: Water, Earth, Air and Fire. The Fire Nation is waging a ruthless, oppressive war against the other three nations. The film’s reluctant young hero, Aang, is the “Last Airbender”—the Avatar who, according to prophecy, has the ability to manipulate all of the elements and bring all the nations together. Aided by a protective teenage Waterbender named Katara and her bull-headed brother, Sokka, Aang proceeds on a perilous journey to restore balance to their war-torn world. According to Paramount, Shyamalan will strive to combine the epic scope and visual style of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings saga with the action and spectacle of Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Reader Comments

• karacature :

  Thursday, April 17, 2008

  Why on earth would you want to make a feature film based on an animated series in live action??

• Anonymous :

  Friday, April 18, 2008

  I think the question is more like \"why on earth, air, fire & water, would you want to make it in live action?\"

• Anonymous :

  Friday, April 18, 2008

  Because M Night Shyamalamadingdong sees himself as a Hollywood visionary and has convinced the studios to give him enough pull to produce an effect-heavy yet now predictable (& almost expected) twist of a thinly plotted film. Looking forward to it?...

• anon :

  Friday, April 18, 2008

  Because it\\\'s going to look so awesome on screen. The creators or for it and working closely. Who wouldn\\\'t want to see bending in liveaction?

• Anonymous=-) :

  Friday, May 02, 2008

  Hells, yeah I love the show & can\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t wait to see the movie GO AVATAR!

• Rakochet :

  Wednesday, May 21, 2008

  Bekham bends it all the time, and... people seem to like it.

• annon. :

  Thursday, July 24, 2008

  i dont care if its in live action or not. I jus want to see the movie

• maiko :

  Wednesday, August 27, 2008

  i miss the show.
  So I\'m exited for almost anything avatar related.
  I really hope the movie goes well, i so don\'t want anything to kill it.

• Lioness :

  Wednesday, December 17, 2008

  I don\\\\\\\'t like the idea, hearing (and I guess seeing in this movie) their voices without the original cast is going to be so weird, and to see them not look like themselves is going to be weird. In my opinion it\\\\\\\'s an awful idea to make it not animated, and also an awful idea to just retell the story. We\\\\\\\'ve already sen this plot line, I want a new one of they\\\\\\\'re putting the effort into making a \\\\\\\"spin off\\\\\\\" film.

• Lily ballard : Kobashi

  Wednesday, February 18, 2009

  i would extremely want to play katara inthe movie, but i know that this nicola Peltz girl is playing her part, \'sigh\'
  although, i think it would be a good film.

• laura : hollister worker : hollister

  Sunday, March 08, 2009

  i love avatar the last airbender i think its a great show(its my fav)
  i havent stoped talking about da movie im making my friends see it wit me even though they hate the show
  GOOOOOOOOOO
  The Last Airbender Movie

• appleoreo : executive assistant : Office Solutions

  Friday, May 29, 2009

  I think live action is able to deal with things that a cartoon can\\\'t. The characters are well developed in the series, but cartoons have to be relatively simplistic. More of the five senses are involved in a live-action movie: the cool fluidity of water, the heat and glow of the fire at night, the crumbling dirty-ness of earth, and the reaction of cloth and hair to a breeze are all heightened in live action. The nations can be defined by more than their national colors--their smaller cultural habits and culturally influenced personalities and facial expressions. It is a marvelous challenge for any producer to create a world that doesn\\\'t exist, yet mirrors our own in many ways. War and the balance of power is also a deep subject for nowadays.

• VICTORIA LEWIS : VICTORIA : NICKELODEON

  Friday, November 20, 2009

  BRING BACK DANNY PHANTOM AND AVATAR LAST AIRBENDER AND JIMMY NEUTRON BOY GENIUS AND HEY ARNOLD AND THE X\\\'S AND CATSCRATCH AND FRESH PRINCE OF BEL AIR AND FULL HOUSE BRING IT BACK UNTIL CHRISTMAS 2009 NICKELODEON AND NICK@NITE KEEP THE SHOWS FOREVER AND EVER AND U PICK LIVE SHOWS THANK YOU

• VICTORIA LEWIS : NICKELODEON : NONE

  Sunday, November 22, 2009

  WHO WANTS AVATAR TO COME BACK I WANT IT BY VICTORIA LEWIS ON NICKELODEON AND DANNY PHANTOM TOO AND ALL OLD SHOWS KEEP THE SHOWS FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER AND EVER BACK ON MONDAYS EVERYDAY

• anonymous :

  Thursday, January 07, 2010

  anonymous, April 18, 2008
  you don\'t have to result to racist remarks. that\'s just sad.