LAST AIRBENDER trilogy may take 6 years to complete
Were you blown away by the teaser trailer for M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender? Well, then it will come as a bit of a let down to hear that they are not filming the planned trilogy back to back, as they did for Lord Of The Rings. Instead Shyamalan is opting to shoot the films one at a time, which could take 6 years to complete! /Film reported that Airbender Producer Frank Marshall confirmed the news, but was quick to note that they will take full advantage of the sets and and other elements that they've already created for the first film.
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.
Shyamalan is currently finishing up the script to the second Last Airbender film. The movies are being adapted from the cartoon series Avatar: The Last Airbender which aired on Nickelodeon. They decided to drop the word "Avatar" to avoid confusion with James Cameron's unrelated film also entitled Avatar.
From what I've seen so far from The Last Airbender, this could be the movie that takes M. Night Shyamalan out of the slump he's been in. And for all you fans of the cartoon series, Shyamalan notes:
The Last Airbender will be a very entertaining movie, a really fun summer film. But underneath that, it’s serious and talks about genocide, balance, our connection to the planet and all those things that interest me if you’ve seen the other movies that I’ve made. It felt like an important film.
So it'll have action, and be fun. But also have Shyamalan's often subtle, but sometimes blatant messages... yay?! Either way, I'm sure the action will be incredible. It'll be interesting and refreshing to see M. Night take his unique visual style, and run wild in a much bigger world than he's ever tackled. The Last Airbender hits theaters July 2nd, 2010.