Team Avatar is finally back! Five years since Avatar Studios opened its doors, the company’s first release, Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender, is finally bending its way onto Paramount+ and in select theaters, complete with a panel at San Diego Comic-Con.
Avatar Aang reintroduces viewers to the “Gaang” they first met in the 2005 franchise-launching Nickelodeon animated series. There’s the Avatar himself, Aang; Katara, the compassionate waterbending master; Zuko, the honorable Fire Lord; Toph, the fierce blind earthbender; and Sokka, the boomerang-busting comic-relief Sokka.
Over the decades, the Avatar series has become Nickelodeon’s most valuable property. Between The Last Airbender and its follow-up 2012 series The Legend of Korra, the franchise has won both Primetime and Daytime Emmys, as well as seven Annie Awards, and a Peabody. (A live action remake of The Last Airbender series is currently streaming on Netflix.)
But fans never experienced their favorite benders (and Sokka) like this: in their mid-20s. Overseen by franchise creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, Avatar Aang offers cinematic scope and scale with state of the art hand-drawn animation that fans have wished for ever since meeting the boy in the iceberg.
But just like the title character’s long road to mastering the four elements, the franchise’s first animated feature had a rocky road to screens. Follow along as we recap that bumpy journey.
Aang begins
Back in 2020, the previous Paramount regime licensed Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra to Netflix, and saw both series experience a second life. Around the same time, Konietzko and DiMartino left Netflix’s live action adaptation as Nickelodeon execs sought to mend the bonds with the creators following the network’s disastrous handling of Korra, which went from cable to digital in its final season.
Paramount formed Avatar Studios, and Konietzko and DiMartino became co-chief creative officers. In February 2021, Avatar Aang was placed in the production pipeline. “It was exciting to hear they were going to continue the story and build an in-between story from the Korra series,” Syracuse University Visual Communication Assistant Professor Jason Webb tells Gold Derby. “I knew it was not going to be a quick process, but I was hoping for more of a series than a movie.”
The movie was going to be directed by Avatar veteran Lauren Montgomery, and Flying Bark Productions and Studio Mir, which worked on Korra, were tapped to do the animation. Three years later at CinemaCon 2024, Paramount unveiled a new voice cast that included Eric Nam, Dionne Quan, Jessica Matten, Steven Yeun, and Román Zaragoza as Aang, Toph, Katara, Zuko, and Sokka, respectively, reflecting the characters’ updated ages and AAPI backgrounds.
“I want to say we live in a different world now, but casting white actors in the original show was baffling back then, too,” observes Hamish Steele, animator and creator/showrunner of Dead End: Paranormal Park. “IAging the characters up and moving things to the cinematic realm is as good a reason as any to refresh the cast. Representation on screen means nothing if it isn’t there behind the scenes.”
The trouble begins
Avatar Aang experienced delays early on, resulting in a cascading series of release date delays from October 2025 to January 2026 and, ultimately, October 2026. But those theatrical plans changed when the Skydance nation attacked.
Following David Ellison’s acquisition of the studio in late 2025, the new Paramount regime announced Avatar Aang would bypass theaters for a streaming premiere after the latest SpongeBob Squarepants movie met with middling box office. The announcement resulted in an outcry across social media with animation professionals weighing in. Kevin Williams of the animation news YouTube channel RoundtableVids tweeted: “Because the millionth SpongeBob film in the last 3 years flopped? I hate it here.”
Paramount Skydance tried to mitigate some of the negative reaction by also unveiling the next Avatar Studios series, Avatar: Seven Havens, which will officially debut on Paramount+ on Oct. 9 — when Avatar Aang was supposed to bow in theaters. A trailer for the new series debuted at Comic-Con on Thursday.
“It honestly feels criminal.” Steele says, pointing out that Avatar fans had been waiting for the film for a long time. “Any other country would put it in theaters, but for some reason 2D animation is just not considered filmic anymore. When you see what trash does get put in cinemas and then bombs, I genuinely feel people aren’t angry enough.”
It’s worth noting that 2D animation experienced a huge comeback in American theaters in 2025 with Crunchyroll’s releases of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: Infinity Castle and Chainsaw Man: The Movie: Reze Arc both topping the box office. “2D animation has its own appeal,” Webb explains. “As an educational animator and fan of animation in general, 2D work is not going anywhere. The style and storytelling it creates evoke nostalgia for some and a now-retro look for many stories.”
There be pirates
As if the straight to streaming shift wasn’t painful enough, on April 12, Avatar Aang sustained an attack as painful as Azula’s lightning strike. An anonymous X account, ImStillDissin, leaked a few HD clips from the film, posting that Nickelodeon “accidentally” emailed him the entire movie. The unreleased film in its completion was leaked online the day after and was widely viewed before being taken down.
While Paramount lawyers tried to scrub the film off the internet, the damage had already been done. Animators working on the movie and even actors from the original series — like Michaela Jill Murphy, who previously voiced Toph — pleaded with fans not to watch the pirated version.
“If you want to be respectful, and if you want to know how I feel, stop sharing it. Stop consuming it. Stop talking about it. And watch it when it comes out,” Murphy says in a TikTok video. And Julia Schoelart, an animator on the film, expressed her disappointment on X, writing: “We worked on the Aang movie for years with the expectation that we’d get to celebrate all of our hard work in theaters just to see people unceremoniously leak the film and pass our shots around on Twitter like candy.”
Steele notes that Avatar Aang might earn the dubious distinction of sustaining the worst film leak in history. “I really don’t know what goes through the minds of people who leak stuff like this,” he says. “Their priorities and impulses are so alien to me. Presumably they consider themselves a ‘fan,’ but they have nothing but contempt for the humans who make the thing they love.”
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, DiMartino called April 12 a “dark day” around Avatar Studios. “We were all pretty disappointed and frustrated and all the emotions,” he said. “It’s just one of those unfortunate things that occur… I’ve been through a lot of them in various ways in my life, so it’s always a setback and disappointing.”
Later that month, an unidentified 26-year-old man was arrested in Singapore for leaking the film. He faces up to seven years in prison, a $50,000 fine, or both if found guilty. On July 7th, Paramount revealed the film would be moving up its Paramount+ release date drastically, moving from October to July 24. A week later, the studio announced that Avatar Aang would be receiving a limited theatrical run to qualify for Oscar eligibility.
Both Webb and Steele agree that the film deserves a larger theatrical rollout for fans across the nation, with Steele highlighting how the the underwhelming performance of Supergirl and The Mandalorian and Grogu should prompt studios to reevaluate what movies attract audiences to the multiplex. As for its Oscar chances, Aang would have to face off against a crowded landscape that includes Toy Story 5, Minions & Monsters, and The Amazing Digital Circus, along with upcoming titles like Forgotten Island and Wildwood.
“I could certainly see a nomination and it winning just for the novelty of it all, but it’s hard to not see Toy Story up there and think they could lose,” Steele says, making his own Oscar predictions. “Personally, I’m Team Hoppers right now, and I’m very hopeful that Wildwood could sneak in, too. The race feels wide open right now.”
