Remember that talk about "The Last Airbender" sequels? Yeah, probably not

UPDATE: The Last Airbender opened to the tune of 40 Million dollars, second behind Eclipse. The experts are predicting a sharp drop off in business for next week.

Every once in awhile I go back to some of our older posts just for kicks. Just to re-evaluate my writing style, see if old rumors ever came true, etc. Well I stumbled across this beaut; a posting about how The Last Airbender was actually a trilogy and how the three films would NOT be filmed back to back.

Here is the quote from poducer of The Last Airbender, Frank Marshall. That post was on July 2nd, 2009, exactly a year ago today:

We’re shooting them one at a time, because they’re being written one at a time. [M. Night Shyamalan] is now working on the script for the second movie, but he hasn’t had time to write the second or third ones. He’s looking at the arc of all three. One of the things we’ll be doing is using the sets, ships and elements for each different nation in this film and incorporating them into movies two and three. We’re not waiting. There just isn’t enough time. Night will finish this movie, then the script and then we’ll prepare for the next one. I think it’ll probably happen over six years.

You might be asking yourself, "why is this so absurd"? Because of The Last Airbender's reviews and potential flop status, that's why. The movie is out to a terrible start in the early numbers. And as far as critics are concerned? 8% with over 100 critics writing into Rotten Tomatoes.

I'm not trying to be mean to M. Night Shyamalan, I'm really not. In fact, I am a big fan of his OLDER work (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs). And I hate prejudging a film before I go see it, but this one seems to be universally hated. Maybe it's because it is based on prior works, maybe it's because the story doesn't translate well from cartoon television series to film, or maybe M. Night Shyamalan's script/directing suck. I hate to be the barer of bad news, but his movies have gotten progressively worse after Signs. Oh well, I'll rent it from Redbox for a dollar and hope for the best!

New "Inception" and "Airbender" Posters

These are the latest posters out on the net for M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender and Christopher Nolan's Inception from our pals over at Slashfilm.
Lookin' good!
You can click on the images to enlarge them.

Avatar: The Last Airbender trilogy will not be filmed back-to-back

Peter Jackson revolutionized the way movies are made; kinda. He shot the Lord of the Rings trilogy back-to-back-to-back. Keeping that many characters, sets, special effects, all in your head for that long a period of time is pretty amazing. The 'Pirates' trilogy followed the same technique with parts 2 and 3; but the Avatar trilogy will not. Why? Here's what producer Frank Marshall has to say, via Starlog:

We’re shooting them one at a time, because they’re being written one at a time. [M. Night Shyamalan] is now working on the script for the second movie, but he hasn’t had time to write the second or third ones. He’s looking at the arc of all three. One of the things we’ll be doing is using the sets, ships and elements for each different nation in this film and incorporating them into movies two and three. We’re not waiting. There just isn’t enough time. Night will finish this movie, then the script and then we’ll prepare for the next one. I think it’ll probably happen over six years.

My personal opinion is that they don't trust M. Night Shyamalan. His movies, one after the other, flopped like pancakes. Disney is distributing Avatar and they're not in the business of flops. They like to be hands on during the filming and post-production process. They're not going to let Shyamalan ruin an obvious franchise, so they'll take it one movie at a time. What do you think? Am I being too harsh on Mr. Shyamalan? Just remember, Unbreakable is one of my all time favorite movies.

M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender Teaser Trailer!

Ok folks, this is the first promising movie from M. Night Shyamalan since Signs in 2002. Everything he's done since then, in my opinion, has been bad... at best! Remember Lady in the Water? Yeah, neither does anyone else. Or the horrible "The Happening" last year... OH MY GOD, THE POLLEN IS GOING TO GET US!!! Anyway, sorry for that rant, he's just made me very upset the last few years. The Last Airbender is based on the popular Nickelodeon cartoon: Avatar: The Last Airbender.

It's all fantasy action, and the trailer looks promising. The movie is due out next summer and is expected to be the first of three movies in the franchise. The movie will star new comer Noah Ringer and Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionaire. Enjoy everyone!