Tag: the last airbender

‘Slumdog’ star joins Shyamalan’s ‘Airbender’

dev-patel

You just knew ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ was going to make a star out of Dev Patel. Â  The young actor has signed onto M. Night Shyamalan’s adaptation of ‘The Last Airbender’ based on the Avatar TV series. Â  Production begins in Greenland next month.

Patel joins a cast made up of relatively uknown actors such as Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone, and Jessica Jade Andres.

Ringer is a complete unknown who was tapped for the title role off an Internet audition. Patel, meanwhile, steps into a role that Jesse McCartney  had all but locked up until the actor’s second career as a musician got in the way.

“Jesse had tour dates that conflicted with a boot camp I always hold on my films, and where the actors here have to train for martial arts,” Shyamalan said.

Patel was “already one of the guys I was interested in. Then I saw ‘Slumdog Millionaire,’ and the kid just grew in my eyes,” he said.

Paramount is set to release “Airbender on July 2, 2010. Â  Shyamalan said he is planning a three-picture story arc.

Source: Variety

Shyamalan casts ‘The Last Airbender’

According to Entertainment Weekly, yours truly’s favorite director, M. Night Shyamalan, has done principal casting for ‘The Last Airbender’.

M. Night Shyamalan has found the cast for The Last Airbender, his upcoming live-action film based on the popular anime-inspired Nickelodeon series. The youthful group is mostly filled with unknowns who are likely to be household names by the time Paramount opens the first in its potential three-film franchise in July 2010. After an open casting call in Texas, Shyamalan discovered karate star Noah Ringer and offered him the part of Airbender’s 12-year old hero, Aang, an Avatar with superpowers who must stop the Fire Nation from destroying the world. ‘Twilight”s Jackson Rathbone has been asked to play Aang’s pal Sokka, while Nicola Peltz (‘Deck the Halls’) will star as his sister Katara. Genial singer Jesse McCartney, meanwhile, is negotiating to play against type in the role of the Fire Nation’s evil prince Zuko.

Ever since this morning’s announcement of the cast, people around the web  have been pissin’ and moanin’ – the  usual  crabby comments about Mr. Shyamalan and  that Avatar’s creators  wouldn’t have chosen these kids – i.e., the color of their skin compared to the characters in the cartoon. Shyamalan surely isn’t doing the casting alone, so I say lets wait til we’ve seen the first pics of these kids in costume.

‘The Last Airbender’ open casting call

  

The god-like, genius director M. Night Shyamalan…whose birthday is tomorrow….is looking for a kid for his new movie, ‘The Last Airbender.’ Paramount Pictures and Nick Movies have launched TheLastAirbenderCasting.com, an official site dedicated to finding the cast for the live-action motion picture. Based on the Nickelodeon tv series, Avatar, the film is set in an Asian-influenced fantasy world permeated by martial arts and magic and follows the adventures of the successor to a long line of Avatars who must put aside his irresponsible ways and stop the Fire Nation from enslaving the Water, Earth and Air nations.

‘The Last Airbender’Â  is scheduled for a July 2nd, 2010 release.