Paramount is investigating the online leak of its upcoming film The Legend Of Aang: The Last Airbender, but the company has determined that it did not come from within the studio, sources familiar with the situation told Variety.
The entire film was posted online over the weekend. Despite takedown efforts, it remains viewable as of Thursday morning, however, clips of the movie on X are still being taken down through its copyright takedown process. The animated feature was originally slated to be released theatrically on Friday, October 9, but the studio decided instead to distribute it exclusively on Paramount+ — leading to fan protest.
Paramount declined to comment on the leak. The Legend of Aang is based on the beloved Nickelodeon animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender. It was animated by Flying Bark Productions, based in Australia.
The X account that originally posted clips from the film on Saturday — “ImStillDissin” — claimed the leak came from someone at Paramount Global subsidiary Nickelodeon who “accidentally emailed me the entire Avatar Aang movie.” But a source familiar with the situation said that the initial investigation determined that the vulnerability had nothing to do with Paramount’s systems.
The person behind the anonymous X account figured he was just trolling when he leaked two minute-long clips of the film, The Hollywood Reporter reports. On Sunday, a friend of his sent him a full copy of the movie. He didn’t know what it was until he looked it up.
“I saw it’s just a Paramount+ thing, so I decided I’d troll a little bit” by posting the videos, he says, explaining that he didn’t think it was a big deal since the movie isn’t being released in theaters. He added a watermark to the clips in a nod to the affiliation of the friend that sent him the movie.
Posters egged ImStillDissin on to leak the full film. He resisted, though it didn’t matter. By Monday, an unrelated account that appears to belong to someone in Singapore leaked the full movie. It’s circulated widely across the diehard fanbase since then.
Hollywood is no stranger to leaks. Screeners of The Revenant, Zero Dark Thirty and Game of Thrones all hit the internet days or even weeks before they were officially released. Still, you’d have to go as far back as 2017, when hackers stole episodes of the newest season of Orange Is the New Black from the show’s postproduction vendor in a bid to extort Netflix, for another incident involving a title as big as Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender that was leaked months in advance.
Animators for the movie urged fans to resist watching, explaining that doing so undermines the work of cast and crew.
“We worked on the Aang movie for years with the expectation that we’d get to celebrate all of our hard work in theaters,” said animator Julia Schoel, creator of animated short film The Legend of Pipi who’s also worked on Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie, on X, “… just to see people unceremoniously leak the film and pass our shots around on Twitter like candy.”
Schoel also said that Paramount’s “awful decision” to remove the movie from theaters does not justify leaking it online.
“I totally understand folks not wanting to pay for/support paramount+” she wrote, “but pirating the movie after its release would have at least been better than this. This is incredibly disrespectful to all of the hard work the artists put in.”
“This is incredibly disrespectful to all of the hard work the artists put in,” Schoel added.
Added Tessa Bright, animation director at Flying Bark Studios, which animated the movie: “It’s perfectly reasonable for anyone who worked on this project to be frustrated at this situation. The amount of effort and dedication it took to make this film happen speaks for itself in the final product and I’m sure a lot of you will agree.”
The original voice of Toph Beifong in Avatar: The Last Airbender, Michaela Jill Murphy (who is also known by her stage name, Jessie Flower), has also told fans not to look at The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender leaks.
“Stop talking about it, and stop sharing things about it,” Murphy said in a TikTok video. “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. That’s what I’m doing. And if you want to respect the creators and respect the cast and respect me, and respect the art, then stop sharing it and editing it and looking at it and commenting about it.”
Then, in her character’s voice, Murphy added: “The key to Earthbending is your stance. You’ve got to be steady and strong. Rock is a stubborn element, so if you’re going to move it, you’ve got to be like a rock yourself.”
“So maybe just practice some discipline and patience,” she continued. “Flag videos where you see clips from it. Respect the art and respect the creators. I know everybody might not listen, but that’s not a reason for you not to listen. Just be respectful and wait. That’s how I feel about it.”
Not everyone’s on board with the idea, however. “Respectfully, no,” one person commented. “We do not support big corporations. Especially ones who gatekeep art. Paramount+ is not available in most European countries, a lot of us wouldn’t be able to experience the movie in any way shape or form. They even scrapped the theatrical release, which would’ve given us the option to at least watch it for a limited time. So the answer is no. We will continue to watch and talk about it, and make edits about it. This franchise has been a part of our childhood just as much. Artists should respect the ones who consume their art. Therefore I encourage everyone to talk about the show, make edits, and have a fun time. Respect has to be earned, and we are not respected, so we do not have any obligations to show it in return.”
Murphy responded to this comment directly, saying: “This is an odd takeaway from what I spoke on in the video. There are ways to value artists and art and go against a bigger corporation at the same time. I would encourage you to rethink your current perspective “
Indeed, Murphy has spent some time responding to comments that were critical of her stance on the leaks. “Toph Beifong defending a multi million dollar corporation is so 2026,” one person said. “You’re kidding me right?” Flower countered. “I’m beginning to wonder who’s really the blind one around here…”
Paramount+ announced last December it would release the film, along with new Avatar series Seven Havens, on its streaming platform. The film’s director, Lauren Montgomery, expressed her dismay with that decision in an Instagram post last month, when she announced that the film had wrapped production.
“We screened the final film for the crew and celebrated the end of a four-year journey,” she wrote. “Now it waits in limbo until its release in October… The recent decision to move us from theatrical to streaming might give the impression that the quality wasn’t sufficient, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. This movie deserves to be seen on a big screen!!! Can’t wait for you all to see it!”
The fallout has sparked a discussion over Paramount’s decision to forgo a traditional theatrical release for a valuable franchise. The original series had a dazzling Netflix run in 2020 when it topped the streamer’s daily chart for more than 60 consecutive days — a record at the time for a non-Netflix original — and even last year when it ranked as the third most streamed animated show on the platform two decades after it was released. The series has finished among Nielsen’s Top 100 most-streamed titles during 17 of 139 weeks since its debut on the platform in March 2023. Paramount, which declined to comment, decided to bypass a theatrical run as part of its plan for its streamer to become the exclusive home of all animated content from Avatar Studios, the creative force behind the universe.
Pointing to Paramount’s pivot away from releasing the movie in theaters, some fans have defended their choice to illegally download the leaked movie. One common refrain: they would’ve pirated the film anyway since it would’ve premiered on Paramount+.
However, fans have praised the animation and said that the movie “deserved to be in theaters.”
ImStillDissin says he never planned to leak the entire movie “not necessarily out of respect to Paramount” but rather because it’s a “jackass thing to do to the animators.”
The origin of the video he received is unclear. It was a recording of the movie, meaning there were likely security measures in place to prevent unauthorized downloading. The version of the film that was ultimately pirated across the internet was a high quality file, potentially indicating a breach of systems maintained by those that worked on the movie.
The incident follows an unfinished copies of Paramount’s Plankton: The Movie and The Fairly OddParents: A New Wish being leaked before their Netflix debuts.
Based on the original Avatar: The Last Airbender series created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, Avatar: Aang, The Last Airbender is directed by Montgomery with Steve Ahn (Voltron: Legendary Defender) and William Mata (Dora and the Fantastical Creatures) co-directing. Latifa Ouaou, Maryann Garger, Konietzko and DiMartino serve as producers. Award-winning composer Jeremy Zuckerman scored the film.
The voice cast features Eric Nam as Aang, Jessica Mattenas Katara, Dionne Quanas Toph, Román Zaragoza as Sokka and Steven Yeunas Zuko, with Dave Bautista as the villain, Taika Waititi, Geraldine Viswanathan, Dee Bradley Baker, Freida Pinto and Ke Huy Quan.
Set years after the events of The Last Airbender, the film begins as Avatar Aang, the world’s last Airbender, learns of an ancient power that could save his culture from extinction. With the help of his friends, he embarks on a global quest to find it before it falls into the wrong hands and threatens to upend the peace they sacrificed everything to achieve.
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H/T: Animation Magazine, X/Twitter.
