The ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ sequel: To watch or not to watch?
Piracy and leaks will always be there, but rarely do they ever significantly affect a film or game’s overall success. Take the 2014 “leak” of Ryan Reynolds’ test footage as Deadpool for example, which led to unprecedented levels of hype, three films, inclusion in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), and billions of dollars in revenue.
But a whole film being unceremoniously leaked months ahead of its initial release? Well, not even the highly anticipated “The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender” will likely get out of this unscathed.
Four years of work down the drain
“Avatar: The Last Airbender” is undeniably one of the most beloved animated shows of all time, and its upcoming film sequel would be the first time we’d see the Gaang again since “The Legend of Korra” follow-up in 2012.
As such, hype was certainly established when Avatar Studios, a production division under Nickelodeon Animation Studio (which is also a subsidiary of Paramount), announced three “Avatar” animated films in development, including “The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender.”
However, anticipation quickly turned into resentment when Paramount canceled its plans for a theatrical release, opting instead for a full streaming drop on Paramount+ this Oct. 9, 2026. Though this would now be the least of their problems after the full one-and-a-half-hour film was shared on X, and is now spreading like wildfire—regardless of copyright strikes and reports.
While Paramount and Nickelodeon have yet to acknowledge the leak as of writing, the fact that the shared footage is polished, finished, and not recorded by a camera leads us to believe that the studio was hacked.
And this came just weeks after Lauren Montgomery, the director of the animated film, shared that production for “The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender” had officially wrapped.
“We screened the final film for the crew and celebrated the end of a four-year journey. Now it waits in limbo until its release in October. I’ve never worked on an Avatar project that was easy, and this was no different. But it was worth it. I’m so proud of everyone who was a part of this and the amazing thing we built together,” writes Montgomery on Instagram.
An uncertain future for the Gaang
So far, online discussions surrounding the leak have fallen into two sides. On one end, some refuse to watch it under any circumstances, out of respect for the film’s creators. On the other hand, others see it as a direct attack against Paramount—a way to force them into a theatrical release as originally planned.
From the outside looking in, that could be a reasonable expectation. After all, with streaming-only films mostly relying on subscriptions for profit, having a theatrical release is a viable response to recoup losses from the leak.
But from what we’ve seen so far on X, each leaked video has already amassed hundreds of thousands of views, with some users going as far as to download it for themselves. With millions having already seen the film, and likely even more by the time it goes into its official release schedule—even a theatrical release may not be able to save the film financially.
This is why we don’t deserve nice things
Personally, I checked the leaked material and loosely browsed it for the sake of writing this story. I intend to watch the film in theaters (if they do pivot to a theatrical release)—though, since Paramount+ isn’t available in the Philippines, I may have to head over to X again if their release plans remain unchanged.
For as widely loved as “Avatar” is, the fact that it’s taken Nickelodeon and Paramount close to a decade to release its next entry speaks to the lack of trust executives have in the franchise. In short, “The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender” isn’t an industry cash grab but a work of love by those passionate about the world of Avatar.
It’s unfortunate, though, that Paramount has effectively ruined an event many “Avatar” fans have been looking forward to by making it a streaming exclusive. That by itself deserves its own form of criticism.
But leaking four years of work won’t harm them the way some think it would. If anything, it would only affect those part of Avatar Studios who stand to possibly lose their jobs if Paramount decides to cut its losses.
“I don’t like seeing people use Paramount’s awful decision to remove the movie from theaters to justify leaking it. I totally understand folks not wanting to pay for or support Paramount+, 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,” writes Julia Schoel, an animator who worked on the film.
Tom Barkel, an artist part of the film’s production, echoes a similar sentiment, “To those who say: ‘who cares, the artists were paid.’ The ugly truth is that by not supporting the official release, you bite the hand that feeds someone else. This jeopardizes future work for artists in an increasingly hostile industry.”
Paradoxically, for fans of the “Avatar” franchise, Aang is a pacifist who brought the world into order without as much as shedding any blood. No matter the cause, putting the artists who stand to lose the most from a film leaking out of a job will never be the correct thing to do.
If you were really a fan, you’d ask: Is this what Aang would do?
