Earlier this week, Paramount Pictures announced that it has officially pulled The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender from theaters and will release it exclusively on its streaming service. While many fans are rightfully upset by this move and have started a petition calling on Paramount-Skydance CEO David Ellison to reconsider (via Change.org), it reveals a broader problem with Avatar Studios as a whole.
Avatar Studios was started in 2021 with original Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Aang creators Bryan Konietzko and Mike DiMartino. The studio was announced shortly after the two departed Netflix in 2020, after spending over 2 years working on the live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender. In that time, the then-showrunners on the project accomplished little. Many of the issues behind the scenes were the lack of urgency in developing the project, as it was announced way back in 2018 (via Deadline). As well as the two’s inability to showrun a live-action production correctly on the producer side. Not to mention many story changes the two wanted to make with their original writers’ room. As they have frequently said, they hate doing “the same thing twice” with their storytelling. So the show would be almost unrecognizable from the original animated series we learned at Knight Edge Media.
Netflix ultimately stepped in and brought in Albert Kim (a previous TV show showrunner) and producer Dan Lin of Rideback Productions to help guide the project toward filming. Netflix also wanted the live-action show to be closer to the original series, despite the insane internet rumors, trying to make it an edgier Riverdale (via FandomWire). Netflix did lower its original episode count from 10 to the now-standard 8 for the season. Ultimately, the duo were offended by Netflix’s overstepping on their vision and exited the project. In the end, Kim took over as showrunner, hired a brand new writers’ room, and actually got the series off the ground in under a year, even under intense COVID-19 restrictions.
After exiting Netflix, they partnered with Paramount and Viacom to develop new animated content set in the Avatar universe. They wouldn’t need to report to Nickelodeon, who famously worked against the duo during their time on Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. Avatar Studios announced that three animated films and a possible spin-off television show would be made under Mike & Bryan. Eventually, an AAA video game set in the universe was also announced.
At first, the plan was to have three separate animated films set in different eras throughout the Avatar universe. The three films would follow Avatar Kyoshi, Avatar Korra, and Firelord Zuko. Extremely early work began on the Avatar Kyoshi prequel film before it was shut down. Then, Avatar Studios officially announced that an Avatar Aang feature film would be made for theaters at San Diego Comic-Con 2022. This new film was expected (though never confirmed) to be part of a three-movie trilogy rather than a standalone film. Scrapping the other films altogether. Flying Bark Animation announced it would be working on the film exclusively.
However, in the summer of 2023, several major layoffs occurred at Avatar Studios due to the simultaneous SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes. The Avatar Aang movie had hit development hell and stalled in the middle of production. Apparently, behind the scenes, the film was tough to complete. Mike & Bryan hired Lauren Montgomery to direct, but eventually brought on two additional directors, William Mata and Steven Ahn, to help complete the film. The studio went so far as to recast ethnically diverse actors in the lead roles, rather than white actors in the original show. They announced the film would still hit theaters on October 10th, 2025, and showcased the first image at CinemaCon 2024. Then, out of nowhere, it was pushed to a non-competitive date, January 20th, 2026, which was the first signal that something was wrong.
Ironically, while the feature film was having issues, we at Knight Edge Media learned the television show was getting made almost flawlessly. Nothing major has befallen Avatar: Seven Havens, and everything is moving as scheduled. Mike & Bryan brought on known writers Sehaj Sethi (The Winchesters) and Ethan Spaulding (Son of Batman) to showrun the new spin-off series in early 2023. They would remain producers on the series. No voice cast has been announced yet for the show. And Mike and Bryan were more than happy to talk about the series at San Diego Comic-Con 2025 than about the movie.
After working on The Legend of Korra in 2024, Studio Mir quietly announced in early 2025 that it had joined Avatar Studios to work on the feature film. Which was confusing, considering Flying Bark had been working on it for a full two years. We at Knight Edge Media were informed that the two studios are working together to finish the film instead of Studio Mir taking over. Nevertheless, it was interesting that Flying Bark couldn’t finish the movie without some assistance. Almost immediately after the Studio Mir announcement, Paramount Pictures announced the film would hit theaters on October 9th, 2026, and revealed the title, The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender. A whole year after it was originally expected to hit theaters.
While the studio had pushed the film twice, undergone layoffs, and brought in two different animation studios to finish it, another problem would arise. After the August merger with Skydance and Paramount, CEO David Ellison promised theatergoers that the company would release up to 30+ films per year exclusively in cinemas (via Variety). While this could be all talk for their hostile takeover bid of Warner Bros., it sounded promising as a fan. However, immediately after the new studio was established, it cancelled many projects, including The Last Ronin. And this past week, Paramount+ announced it will host all upcoming Avatar Studios content, including the movie.
The reasoning behind the dump to streaming, according to Knight Edge Media sources, is simply that the studio isn’t confident the film will make any money at the box office, even with a 20+ year fandom attached. This is truly awful for all the artists who worked on this film since 2023. The same issue arose for Warner Bros. just last year with The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim animated film. The film’s entire marketing campaign was built on nostalgia around the “team behind the Lord of the Rings trilogy”. Yet nobody showed up in theaters, and it flopped hard. Paramount Pictures’ current 2026 slate is already extremely thin, given that its top films are Scream 7, Scary Movie, PAW Patrol, Street Fighter, and Angry Birds 3. It is the first year they will not have a Mission: Impossible, Star Trek, or Transformers IP hit theaters, and they still decided to pull The Legend of Aang to avoid losing money. Unless the Avatar Aang movie does extraordinarily well on Paramount+, as KPop Demon Hunters did on Netflix, the previously announced trilogy will most certainly be canned. Not to mention, Paramount+ isn’t a worldwide streaming service, so they are already working from a disadvantage. However, this is still pure speculation until it is officially announced.
While many fans blame Paramount Pictures for this decision, others blame Mike and Bryan for their lack of leadership behind the scenes, running Avatar Studios. With so many problems, just finishing the movie is a massive challenge. While it seems like this is a knock against the duo that brought us this fantastic universe, many need to remember they aren’t studio executives by trade. They are artists first, storytellers second, and executives/producers third. Many of the best episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender were not even written by them but shepherded as showrunners alongside head writers like Aaron Ehasz and his then-wife Elizabeth Welch Ehasz. The story ideas they exclusively wrote gave us season 2 of The Legend of Korra.
They work best as a collaborative team, bouncing ideas off each other and having someone pull back on their ideas that don’t work. When the duo is the head honchos without any pushback, we end up with what happened with their version of the Netflix series or elements of The Legend of Korra. Unable to take any criticism or outside help from those who know more. If only Mike and Bryan put aside their egos and realized it’s their work friends and collaborative partners behind the scenes who have always elevated this amazing IP. Bring in actual executives who can work on the studio side of things and leave them to big-picture lore decisions for the universe to complete their vision truly. If they don’t, we might not see much from Avatar Studios in the future.
The Legend of Aang and Avatar: Seven Havens will stream exclusively on Paramount+
