Dev Patel says that working on The Last Airbender has soured him to working on big franchise films. Patel got his start on the hit British television series Skins in 2007. The following year the actor starred in the Academy Award-winner Slumdog Millionaire. Patel became an in-demand star and scored a role in what seemed like a great move: the lead villain in an adaptation of the popular Nickelodeon cartoon, Avatar: The Last Airbender, from award-winning director M. Night Shyamalan.
However, the finished product, The Last Airbender, was released in 2010 and was a critical and box-office disappointment and is often considered one of the worst films ever made. Patel even felt the need to apologize to fans of the cartoon for how bad the film turned out to be and how he felt miscast as Zuko in Avatar. In the years since, Patel has found a strong career in smaller character-centric films like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Personal History of David Copperfield, and Lion, for which he earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. His most recent film, The Green Knight, has earned critical acclaim and was one of the most anticipated films of the summer.
Patel has no interest in returning to the world of big-budget films. In an interview Patel did with NYT, the actor comments on how The Last Airbender is the worst film he has ever done. While Patel has a great deal of respect for actors that do a lot of green screen work, and even singles out Marvel actors, he doesn't see himself doing it again. Patel said:
"I shouldn’t even bring it up but do a quick IMDb search and you’ll know what it is. I didn’t really flourish in that position. I take my hat off to all those incredible actors that do Marvel movies where it’s, like, big, noisy fans and green screen and tennis balls and whatnot."
This is not the first time Patel has ruled himself out from a big franchise role. With the announcement that No Time To Die would be Daniel Craig's final time in the role of James Bond, Patel became a favorite online to take over the role but Patel said he has no interest in playing James Bond. Patel did audition for a role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens but given the place Star Wars holds in popular culture among many, it makes a certain amount of sense that he would make an exception for a chance to be in that project.
Luckily, Patel's career path has been far more interesting because of his lack of franchise films. He has paved an interesting resumé of varied roles that allow him to work in a wide variety of genres. Patel's career could be seen as very similar to George Clooney, as both starred in big commercial flops, The Last Airbender and Batman and Robin, respectively, and after that, they took more control over their career by taking on roles that interested them and tested them as actors. Now after all these years away from heavy green screen blockbuster work, George Clooney is working on a television series based on Buck Rogers, so in time even Patel may find a project that draws him back in. For now, though, Patel's career is doing just fine without a franchise and audiences are certainly benefiting from it.
Source: NYT