By Jonathan Klotz
| Updated
Over the weekend, fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender noticed that a few scenes from the upcoming Paramount+ movie were circulating online. It was brief, enough for fans to see the adult version of the beloved cast from the Nickelodeon cartoon and to hear the new voice actors for the very first time. In total, three minutes of footage were shared publicly, but that’s only the start. A user on X claims to have the entire movie in their possession after Paramount accidentally emailed it. How this happened, no one knows, but now Paramount has been told to release a trailer this week or the entire film will hit the internet.
The New Avatar Movie Has Leaked
Paramount’s upcoming Avatar: Aang, The Last Airbender, as it’s officially called because The Legend of Aang made too much sense, was supposed to hit theaters this year. Due to a rare allergy to making money, Paramount instead announced it would launch on Paramount+ on October 6. The leaked footage makes it clear that the quality of the animation is top notch and the movie would look incredible on the biggest screen possible, but well, there has to be some reason to subscribe to their service now that Star Trek is dead. Again.
Avatar: Aang, The Last Airbender takes place years after the fall of Fire Lord Ozai, and peace has returned to the land. Until a new, previously unheard of power is discovered that threatens to plunge the world into war once again. Older, wiser, and with enough power between them to shake the pillars of Heaven, Aang and his friends hit the road one more time. The leaked footage, which includes the first appearance of new characters voiced by Dave Bautista and Taika Waititi, also spoiled a massive plot detail that could change everything about the world of Avatar.
The Avatar Leak Has Been Removed For Now
The footage has been removed from the internet, or as much as anything can really be taken down, with even the original postings on X displaying that “This media has been disabled in response to a report by the copyright owner.” No one knows if the leaker is telling the truth and will dump the full movie online if no trailer is released. It’s a risk Paramount might have to take. It’s also not the first time a major film has leaked well ahead of its release.
Paramount’s own Scream 6 had the Ghostface reveal hit social media days before the film made it to theaters. X-Men Origins: Wolverine leaked online a month before its debut in May, 2009 without any of the special effects, which fooled people into thinking the final film would look better. Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker and The Hateful Eight both leaked online, and the latter was, according to Quentin Tarantino, only available to six people.
Avatar: Aang, The Last Airbender may be another of those “leaks” where the call is found to be coming from inside the house. The common sentiment among fans is that it looks incredible, so could this prompt the studio to release it in theaters? Then again, the parts of the plot that came out have divided the fans. We’ll have to serif the full film gets out and what Paramount will do, but for now, the studio is too busy counting all the money from the Sonic movies to give any comments.
