Despite the unconstructive criticisms the first film received, M. Night Shyamalan is pushing through with a sequel to the movie adaptation, Avatar: The Last Airbender. Shyamalan also defended his work in the previous film saying he created it for the younger audience. New reports have also surfaced that the film's director is not to blame for the failure of the movie.
The fans of the hit animated series Avatar were less than enthusiastic when M. Night Shyamalan's movie adaptation was released. Rotten Tomatoes even rated it with 6%, while it received a 4.3 out of 10 in IMDb. Aside from the fans, IGN reported that even the series' creators, Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante Dimartino weren't impressed with the film and opted to think that the movie didn't exist.
Many of the criticisms blame Shyamalan for the failure of the movie. However, according to Movie Pilot, someone who worked in the film's production revealed that the director was not the one who caused the film's letdown.
According to the alleged source, Shyamalan was the only person who knew the animated series, while the producers who were in charge of 80% of the production did not. Also, the source said that the intended humor that was included in the script were cut out and problems in the budget also got in the way.
Meanwhile, even years after the release of The Last Airbender, the film's director and writer continues to defend his work and said that it was intended for the younger audience.
"It's really weird because on the show the average age was, like, nine-years-old," Shyamalan said. "My child was nine-years-old. So you could make it one of two ways. You could make it for that same audience, which is what I did -- for nine and 10-year-olds -- or you could do the Transformers version and have Megan Fox. I didn't do that."
Shyamalan also added that some of the fans of the series even tell him that they loved that movie and watched it a couple of times. It was previously reported that Shyamalan already wrote the first draft for the sequel, however, news has been scarce since then.
The original film's cast included Noah Ringer, Dev Patel, Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone, and Katharine Houghton. It was written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. More details about the sequel Avatar: The Last Airbender 2 are expected to be released as production progress.
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