Avatar: The Last Airbender movie has been hit with a major blow months before its official release after the whole film was accidentally leaked.
Now, an animator who worked on the highly anticipated project called out those who are using Paramount's "awful decision" to pull the film from theatres "to justify leaking" the animated film.
Over the weekend, The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender was leaked on X, with the account that publicly shared the movie revealing that Nickelodeon "accidentally" emailed them the full film. The posts were eventually removed.
In December, it was revealed that Paramount no longer had plans for a theatrical release of The Legend of Aang and would be launching the movie on its streaming platform, Paramount+.
The long-awaited animated movie was due to hit theatres on October 9, 2026; however, now the streaming platform will be the exclusive home of Avatar Studios content, including The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender and the original series Avatar: Seven Havens.
Amid Paramount's shocking decision, a massive part of the fandom welcomed the leak, which did not sit well with The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender animator Julia Schoel, who turned to her X account to express her frustration.
Schoel penned, "We worked on the Aang movie for years with the expectation that we'd get to celebrate all of our hard work in theaters… just to see people unceremoniously leak the film and pass our shots around on Twitter like candy."
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"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/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."
Anna Gong, who also worked on the movie, said the leak "feels pretty awful."
She added, "The only reason the movie looks so good is because there was so much passion directed toward making a truly special moment for ATLA. Please support the actual release as well so we can make more movies <3"
