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In April, clips from “Avatar Aang” somehow spread on social media, followed by the full movie. A 26-year-old man was later arrested in Singapore for illegally accessing a media server and leaking the film. The “Avatar Aang” cast and original “Last Airbender” stars soon spoke out against the breach and urged fans to not watch the unauthorized version.
“There’s something about respecting the intentions of the creators and many artists who poured years of their life into this. To go about it the proper way is a very respectful way of showing appreciation to the art form and to the many, many, countless hours put into this,” Nam said at the Variety Studio, presented by Google TV. “Thank you guys for waiting.”
After stepping away from Netflix’s live-action “Avatar: The Last Airbender” remake, original creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko formed Avatar Studios in 2021 to continue telling stories from their animated universe. “Avatar Aang” was originally slated to premiere in theaters in 2025, but it was delayed multiple times and ultimately the theatrical release was scrapped in favor of launching on Paramount+. Fans who were hoping for the animated show’s big-screen debut were dismayed at the news. But then earlier this month, Paramount announced that “Avatar Aang” would be coming to select theaters for a limited release, which would qualify it for the Oscars and other award shows.
A second sequel series, “Avatar: Seven Havens,” will premiere on Paramount+ on Oct. 9, but there are more Team Avatar stories in the works.
“Well, the movies, we’re waiting to see how this one does,” said Konietzko. “We have a lot that are in development. We have a script that we feel really good about, but we’ll see how this one fares. I can say I’m actually working on a series that is in a different time period that I’m really excited about. There’s so much in the ‘Avatar’ world to explore in different time periods, different tones. We’ve been in this world for 24 years, and it’s still fruitful to me.”
A lot of years pass between the ending of “Last Airbender” and the beginning of “Legend of Korra” that the creators could explore, including the start of Aang and Katara’s family. In fact, “Avatar Aang” nearly made Katara pregnant with their first child, but the team later scrapped the idea.
“We knew the characters were going to be aged-up, so we were trying to find how how aged-up we were going to make them,” said DiMartino. “Starting a family is a big transition period in a person’s life, and we know from ‘Legend of Korra’ that Bumi is their first child. We explored that option. That started to feel a little too grown-up and like we jumped past maturing from teenage years to mid-20s.”
Konietzko added, “It put a weird spin. The plot of the movie started to put a strange context on Katara having a baby, and it wasn’t the best. It had a weird connotation. We wanted them to have a family because they wanted to have a family, not because she needed to give birth to an airbender. We didn’t think we needed this. Maybe her getting in battles with Tagah with this big belly was not a great idea. It became almost damsel in distress, and we didn’t want to do that either.”
Director Lauren Montgomery agreed with the decision and said that period of Aang and Katara’s relationship could be explored in another movie.
“Ultimately, we want to leave room in case we want to tell more stories,” she said. “We’ve all seen ‘Korra’ and we know where their relationship is going to go and it’s always going to be out of a place of love. This is our first movie out of the gate, so we’re going to give ourselves some room till we reach these other arcs. There are plenty of stories to tell.” %!s(
