With anime being all the rage these days with Gen-Z moviegoers, you have to wonder what David Ellison was thinking with this latest decision.
“The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender,” which had been greenlit by the previous Paramount administration, won’t be getting a theatrical release. Rather, Ellison is sending it straight to Paramount+ next fall.
The film was supposed to premiere on October 9, 2026, after several schedule changes—it was initially slated for October 10, 2025, and later moved to January 30, 2026.
They’ve been working on this movie since 2020, and the filmmakers were under the impression the entire time that it would be getting an actual theatrical release. The film even received a much-buzzed-about sneak peek at CinemaCon in 2023.
This isn’t a good look for Paramount, who are still trying to persuade Warner Bros. to sell their assets to them.
Paramount promised just last month that they would have 15 theatrical releases in 2026. With “Last Airbender” now set for streaming, they currently have nine theatrical releases for next year, which means they probably won’t hit that magic fifteen number—not even close.
Would “Last Airbender” have been a hit had it released in theaters? That’s up for debate, but anime has exploded at the box office this year, with “Demon Slayer” and “Chainsaw Man” hitting #1, and “Ne Zha 2” reaching $2 billion worldwide. While ‘Last Airbender’ might not be anime, it does cross over with that demo —you’d think Ellison would have at least given it a shot theatrically.
I should warn you: based on everything I’ve heard, this teaser is a total misdirection. The movie is not at all what it’s being portrayed as here. In fact, most of the footage in the teaser comes from the first few minutes of the film.