Last week at the 2008 Licensing Expo, the acclaimed director of such films as unbreakable and the sixth sense spoke about his newest project The last Airbender. "It has martial arts and spirituality and the supernatural, and it has Buddhist philosophy and Hindu philosophy–really, everything I talk about–all in one movie. It has a mythology. It’s Shakespearean. It’s all this incredible stuff, and it has a balance. All these movies are plays on magic, whether it’s Lord of the Rings or The Matrix or Star Wars even, and each one of them relates to me in a different way, in its belief system."
Photo taken at the 2008 Licensing Expo by Matthew Peyton/Getty Images
Fans of the series believe this has the potential to be an incredible movie and Nickelodeon is putting a lot of their energy into making this film a box office blockbuster. Not many movies are announced as trilogies at the outset, so Nickelodeon must be pretty confident that this franchise will be a hit in theaters. It was also revealed that this could be among the top movies of 2010 for two reasons: the budget for the movie is $250 million and the release date is set for Independence day weekend (a huge weekend for the box office). While no other companies have set release dates for that weekend yet, Nickelodeon is betting that this movie will be big enough to compete with anything. At the recent Licensing expo, Shyamalan says it could be the next star wars by saying "I called up my agent and said I have a movie I want to do. We phoned Paramount and Nickelodeon, and told them that we think they have the next Star Wars,"
We can be sure that fans of Aang and his friends will flock to the cinemas when it releases because
Avatar: The Last airbender is one of the most highly rated series of all time. TV.com lists it as 9.2, rating it as their 13th most popular show (out of 17,501 different television series). Other family-friendly franchises that did well in the box office were similar to Avatar because they had strong fanbases among international audiences and older audiences (such as Harry Potter). In fact, the depth and maturity makes it hard to tell that this is the same network that made Spongebob Squarepants and Rugrats.
Avatar purists can rest assured that it will very closely follow the TV series and the creators (Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko) will have a lot of input in the adaptation. Shyamalan has gone as far as insisting on working very closely with them throughout the process. However, this is a director who admits he does not prefer a lot of action, and the series is known for its high quality action scenes.
For those of you that have not seen the show, the following is a fan-made trailer outlining the series
The live-action adaptation releases July 2nd, 2010 and casting has begun with production beginning this summer.