Nickelodeon has done something right for the children of today in airing the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender. Seriously, this show is good no matter what age you are, and parents enjoy it too (ask my cousin’s husband Jeromy). Anyways, Paramount and Nickelodeon have teamed up to preview the makings of this beloved anime. It will be a live action film and a product of M. Night Shyamalan. Yep, that guy that confused us with his sneaky The Sixth Sense movie and that weird The Village film. In a brief statement, Shyamalan had this to say about the progress of the casting:
“Casting has begun and we’ve seen thousands of kids. I believe we’ve found the next superstars.”
He also explained how he become so interested in doing this particular movie:
“I sat down and watched four television episodes back-to-back with my kids. We were riveted. I said, ‘This would make a phenomenal movie!’ My wife said, ‘This is the one you’ve been waiting for.”
The film is scheduled to make its debut July of 2010, but not much else has been released. I know this is far away, but this is something to keep our eyes on. It is one of those up in the air movies, especially with Shyamalan. Not to say he isn’t a good writer/director, but this would be something very far away from his usual films. What are your thoughts?
December 30th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
I think this is going to be terrible. I’ve seen pictures of the kids he’s apparently going to cast in the four major roles of Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Zuko and I swear they are the four whitest kids in America, lol.
Jesse McCartney as Zuko is a role they are considering, you’ve got to be kidding me.
Let’s hope this film doesn’t have some wacky plot twist at the end.
December 30th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
What, Jesse McCarthy!? I really hope not. Hopefully they won’t be casting all those whitey kids in this obviously not white cast. Thanks for the extra info kunoichi.
December 31st, 2008 at 12:07 am
I agree with you, kunoichi. I dunno, there was just something special about Avatar, the way it was animated or something. They managed to capture so many priceless facial expressions and an amazing style of movement, I just question whether that could be recreated using real actors, especially kids untrained in martial arts. Oh well, I suppose we’ll see where it goes. If the Dragon Ball Z movie doesn’t suck, my hopes may rise. That’s a big if though.
December 31st, 2008 at 2:23 pm
My mom, who’s 63, is obsessed with this show so much that one of my two Christmas gifts to her was one of the Avatar Wii games. =P
She’ll be stoked about a movie regardless of who they cast.
Then again, her and I are easy to please when it comes to movies. I just watched “In the Name of the King/A Dungeon Siege Movie” last night directed by the notorious Uwe Boll and thought it was fine- kind of disappointed in the lack of DUNGEONS in the movie, but otherwise it had great special effects and I was impressed with the star power in it.
I just don’t dislike things easy, same with her- she’ll go nuts knowing they’re making an Avatar movie. Oh, and both of us like Shymalan, too. =)
December 31st, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Oh jeez no. Why him? He hasn’t done anything good since Unbreakble.
January 1st, 2009 at 1:56 am
ok I understand taht there is this fad on remaking old movies aka they are remaking >.< Footloose with the kid who is in Hairspray and HSM.
Anyway, it might be good, but at the same time I have a strong feeling that this is going to get screwed up and he shouldn’t have touched it.
Cus YOU KNOW he will put a TWIST in the friggen plot! like he always does with his movies. He has said taht he won’t be doing that as he is working with Nickalodon on this project.
Also, he even made teh comment that this will be the next big thing and blow star wars out of the water, it is this generations Star wars…..umm wait what? /facepalm
February 14th, 2009 at 1:39 am
jesse mccartney has left on his own due to schedule conficts. Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire) will take his place.
February 14th, 2009 at 2:08 am
Give M. Night a chance. He Wrote the movie version of Stuart Little #1. Plus, go buy the season 2 complete DVD set. Find the extra disc and play interview with M. Night. he does not want to add a twist. He doesn’t want to change anything. he, at first, wanted to take from all episodes. To film with 1 to 3 minute intervals connecting ep. 1 to ep. 2 and so on. That would have created an 8hr plus film. Brian and Mike said - very nicely to him- that he needed to make it a 1:30 - 3 hour film. Please give him a chance.