Avatar: The Last Airbender will be shown in select theaters in Los Angeles and New York for one week, Variety exclusively reports.
The film is primarily a streaming release, premiering on Paramount+ on July 25th, but will also have an award-eligible theatrical run from July 24th to 30th, showing three times a day at AMC Burbank Town Center 6 in Los Angeles and AMC Empire 25 in Manhattan.
The news suggests Paramount is likely to run a campaign for “Avatar Anne,” which will win Best Animated Feature and other awards at next year’s Oscars.
Tickets to see this film in theaters go on sale July 16th at 9am ET/6am PT. As previously announced, the film will also be screened at San Diego Comic-Con on July 24th.
The theatrical release will give fans a chance to see the series resumed on the big screen as originally intended. Avatar: The Last Airbender is the first film from Avatar Studios, which will launch at Paramount in 2021 and plans to produce and distribute theatrical films in addition to streaming and linear TV series. “Avatar Anne” was originally scheduled to be released in theaters in October, but the company later announced that Paramount+ had become the exclusive distributor for all Avatar Studios content.
The story of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” is a continuation of “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” and stars Eric Nam as Aang, Dave Bautista as Taga, Jessica Matten-Katara as Sokka, Roman Zaragoza as Sokka, Steven Yeun as Zuko, and Dionne Quan as Toph.
The film’s official logline reads, “Avatar Aang, the world’s last airbender, learns of an ancient power that can save her culture from extinction. With the help of her friends, she 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.”
The film was directed by Lauren Montgomery and co-directed by Steve Ahn and William Mata. Avatar: The Last Airbender creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino produced the film along with Latifah Ouaw and Marian Garger. Tim Hedrick and Christopher Yost wrote the screenplay based on the novel by Konietzko, DiMartino, Hedrick, and Kenneth Lin.
“Avatar: The Last Airbender” first aired on Nickelodeon in 2005 and ran for three seasons. It is widely regarded as one of the best animated series of all time, and a sequel series, The Legend of Korra, premiered in 2012 and ran for four seasons.
