Entertainment Weekly is reporting that M. Night Shyamalan has picked some of the cast for his upcoming film, The Last Airbender.
The movie is based on Avatar: The Last Airbender, the popular animated series that ran from early 2005 up until this summer. The story was organized into 3 books (seasons) with each episode called a chapter. There are 20 chapters in each book with one extra in the final book making for a 61-episode run to tell the story and end it properly.
And that they did.
On top of winning an Emmy award and being one of Nickelodeon’s highest rated shows ever; the series spawned all sorts of merchandise including several video games – and now a potential feature film franchise.
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Here is the cast thus far:
- Noah Ringer, a karate star chosen from an open casting call in Texas will play Aang, the central character (the Avatar) of the story. Aang is the last of his tribe and the story follows him as he and his companions travel the world in search of trainers to teach him to master the four elements.
- Nicola Peltz will play Katara of the Southern water tribe.
- Jackson Rathbone of recent Twilight fame will play Katara’s brother, Sokka.
- Jesse McCartney, the young singer, is currently in negotiations to play Zuko, the exiled prince of the Fire Nation.
I watched the entire series earlier this year and really loved it. It took a bit to get used to and there was a lot of corny stuff in the earlier episodes, but overall it was pretty incredible and it is on my list of greatest cartoons ever.
That being said, similar to my thoughts on the new Dragonball Evolution trailer, this will be very difficult to translate into live-action. Shyamalan’s recent track record hasn’t exactly been stellar, so I am eager to see if he can pull this off.
The first installment of The Last Airbender is due out on the big screen July 2, 2010.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
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44 Comments
I agree on Kim. There are many modern ways of doing that. Maybe the siblings can get a sun tan. LoL. But on the accent thing, Of course!, You would hate to hear a Japanese or Korean speak English. They really suck in English. I Admit it I am Asian. But in out Country, English is our second language and most of us still have the American accent.
Can anyone clarify to me that Dev Patrel will be playing Zuko?. Is this Correct or another False Alarm?.
And another favor please?.
can you send me an e-mail of the complete cast of the avatar?. I find it hard finding them.
marlou011@gmail.com
thanks.
I agree on Kim. There are many modern ways of doing that. Maybe the siblings can get a sun tan. LoL. But on the accent thing, Of course!, You would hate to hear a Japanese or Korean speak English. They really suck in English. I Admit it I am Asian. But in our* Country, English is our second language and most of us still have the American accent.
Can anyone clarify to me that Dev Patrel will be playing Zuko?. Is this Correct or another False Alarm?.
And another favor please?.
can you send me an e-mail of the complete cast of the avatar?. I find it hard finding them.
marlou011@gmail.com
thanks.
yes, marlou, dev patel has been confirmed (thank God!) cuz jesse mccartney was the only one i really had a problem with. if you want to see the full cast, go to avatar.wikia.com. as fans, they make sure that that list is accurate.
i don’t agree with what kim said about race not mattering. casting anyone in starwars is ok, but fantasy draws so deeply from our culture that it doesn’t work. you can’t cast a japanese dude as aragorn, or an african guy as legolas, no matter how good an actor he may be, because lotr draws so deeply from medieval european culture.
at the same time, mccartney is the only one i really have a problem with because his teenybopper career is so juxtaposed to this show, and zuko is so important. rathbone as sokka can work cuz of his voice, and nicola could go either way. ringer, the texan karate kid, we virtually know nothing about, so this will really be key, whether this guy can pull it off. while worried about his acting skills, i take comfort knowing he has at least some karate training (it’s no ba gua, but hey, better than no martial arts training right?)
keep in mind, as asian influenced as this show is, fans are going to relate most to how they ’sound’ and even avatards will admit that mae whitman and zach eisen are the least asian sounding you can get. as someone pointed out, even the animations aren’t all that asian influenced as far as faces go. lighten the shades a little and change the hair color and you wouldn’t n
as for shyamalan, i am not worried about as much. for one, he is a total fan, and he’ll be working very closely with the creators of avatar, so we know he won’t butcher the storyline anyways. in his interviews, he looks really excited, so we know they’re really pulling out all the stops. snapshots have been coming in of the first shootings and it looks pretty cool. there was one picture of skeletons littering the ground of an air temple, and all though that was creepy, it’s encouraging to know that he’s taking this movie very seriously, but at the same time he’s sure to make it available to everyone (we know his daughter watches the show, so he’s going to keep it family friendly)
correction in fourth paragraph:
*wouldn’t notice a difference. the casting makes much more sense when seen in this light. still, can’t help but wonder about noah ringer when no one can find anything about him…
Aww, Toph’ not here!
Is it wrong to be choosy? Because I don’t feel that Dev Patel fits the bill either. I don’t doubt his acting skills. It’s just…I don’t know. Facial structure? Dev Patel just doesn’t seem Zuko-ish to me. But oh well. Hopefully the makeup crew will do a good job.
I want to know who’s playing Azula really bad. Are they even going to have her in the movie? Did Shamalyan say he was just going to cover Book 1?
Since Avatar’s creators are on staff, I can at least be rest assured that if the movie is screwed up, it won’t be TOO badly.
wooooooooooooooooow why do they have to ruin my life this is my favorite tv show now they have to ruin the movie that is so stupid come on now I cant go see this movie which i really wanted to when I heard it was coming out but when I haerd who the actors and actresses where I just cant finish my sentence its really weird okay bye;)
dude this is toatal bull and when they get toph shes probably gunna be hanna montaina or somithing realy stupid like that and how the f are they gunna make money of this no one is gunna see it
Jesse McCartney isn’t playing Zuko…don’t worry. But now it’s that big-eared main character from Slumdog Millionaire. Which, with all of my outrage, might represent Zuko a little better that that candy coated pop singer. But oh well.
I’m still pretty pissed that Zuko is being played by Dev Patel…I mean, I have the utmost respect for him as an actor…he really is good since i just absolutely love Slumdog Millionaire…but why is it that he’s Zuko? He has to be better looking coz Zuko is THE man…why can’t Rathbone play Zuko instead and Patel can be Sokka? it’s more accurate visually that way…and at least they won’t have to find new actors anymore…
I like the castings for some of the characters, but think it’s really whack that ALL the Asian main characters are either white or Indian. I actually think Dev would do a decent Zuko, and the kid who plays Aang might be good, but Zhao? There are literally no Eastern Asian characters in this (The Fire nation even has wushu styled Kungfu), and that pisses me off, I get that Shyamalan is Indian and such, but this casting was probably made with little to no care of the source material. I look through the cast list and I literally see no Eastern Asians playing any characters with, well, an actual name and role?
They’re going to ruin it, big time.
I hate the eastern asian thing that has everyone so worked up. In the cartoon everyone sounds american and except iroh and nobody has squinty eyes. get over it
Zuko SHOULD BE PLAYED BY Jesse McCartney!!!!!!!! Not only is he perfect for eye candy but, he actually looks like Zuko! Also i would like to add… when i heard about Jackson Rathbone being in the movie i only had one think to say: SOKKA! At the time i didn’t know who he was going 2 play until i looked it up ’bout 5 mins ago! weird right?
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