Following the online leak of its upcoming film The Legend Of Aang: The Last Airbender, Paramount began investigating the situation, ensuring that their studio members were not involved with it, as per US media reports.
This comes after the studio’s decision to stream and distribute it exclusively on Paramount+ instead of releasing it in theatres on October 9 as mentioned earlier — an announcement that led to fan protests.
The entire film was posted on X by an account that goes by the username “ImStillDissin”. As per Variety, the X user claimed the leak came from someone at Paramount Global subsidiary Nickelodeon who “accidentally emailed me the entire Avatar Aang movie.”
Despite the effort to take it down, the movie continued to exist on the social media platform on several accounts.
A spokesperson for Flying Bark told Variety that the leak did not come from them.
“It was heartbreaking to see footage from ‘The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender’ leak online. This leak did not originate from Flying Bark,” the spokesperson said. “Our studio proudly partnered on the production until the very end and we acknowledge the filmmakers, cast, artists and animators who worked tirelessly to produce this incredibly crafted film.”
Artists who worked on the film expressed their disappointment on social media.
“We worked on the Aang movie for years with the expectation that we’d get to celebrate all of our hard work in theaters,” said animator Julia Schoel on X, “just to see people unceremoniously leak the film and pass our shots around on Twitter like candy.”
“I totally understand folks not wanting to pay for/support paramount+” Schoel further wrote, “but pirating the movie after its release would have at least been better than this. This is incredibly disrespectful to all of the hard work the artists put in.”
In December 2025, Paramount announced that it would release the film on its streaming platform. Director Lauren Montgomery expressed her distaste for the decision in an Instagram post.
“We screened the final film for the crew and celebrated the end of a four-year journey,” she wrote. “Now it waits in limbo until its release in October… The recent decision to move us from theatrical to streaming might give the impression that the quality wasn’t sufficient, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. This movie deserves to be seen on a big screen!!! Can’t wait for you all to see it,” Montgomery wrote.
The film features Dave Bautista, Steven Yeun and Eric Nam in the leading voice cast, while William Mata is set to serve as co-director alongside Montgomery.
