M. Night Shyamalan has found the cast for The Last Airbender, his upcoming live-action film based on the popular anime-inspired Nickelodeon series. The youthful group is mostly filled with unknowns who are likely to be household names by the time Paramount opens the first in its potential three-film franchise in July 2010.

After an open casting call in Texas, Shyamalan discovered karate star Noah Ringer and offered him the part of Airbender's 12-year old hero, Aang, an Avatar with superpowers who must stop the Fire Nation from destroying the world. Twilight's Jackson Rathbone has been asked to play Aang's pal Sokka, while Nicola Peltz (Deck the Halls) will star as his sister Katara. Genial singer Jesse McCartney, meanwhile, is negotiating to play against type in the role of the Fire Nation's evil prince Zuko.

My only complaint with this castlist (besides Rathbone) is the lack of any somewhat-Alaskan-looking actors for Sokka/Katara.

Necro Critic wrote:

Whenever I tell my friends that M. Night Shyamalan is making a live-action Avatar movie, they give me a funny look and ask repeatedly if I'm joking. I wonder what the big twist at the end (or in the case of The Happening, the middle) is going to be.

ZHAO LIVES!

Here's a rather lengthy blog post by one of the major players with the series and his outrage at the non-diverse casting choices:

http://derekkirkkim.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-day-in-politics-same-old-racist.html

"Or imagine if they remade "Shaft" or "Zorro", but cast white actors to play the lead roles. It would be outrageous, right? Well, this Avatar casting is no different. But curiously, when similiar offenses are committed at the expense of Asian Americans, and Asian American men in particular, this sort of behavior goes mostly ignored by the press and the people involved."

"African Americans kids can finally, realistically dream of being president one day. Can't Asian American kids—perhaps my kids—at least dream of being something as relatively insignificant as central characters in some escapist Hollywood movie where everything is stolen from their heritage?

Can't they be a part of America too?"

It's been long enough a wait, so here's the first trailer.

MOGHARR wrote:

WHY?! I didn't even like the series that much but come on...did it really need a movie?

You mean three movies.

Overview of the actors, looks like they kept Sokka and Katara white.

Char Aznable wrote:

Movie automatically fails for whitewash.

All the firebenders are Indian, when I always interpreted the Fire Nation as inspired by China, if anywhere. Maybe if we had a Chinese director, the roles would be different.

Char Aznable wrote:

lordsathien wrote: Char Aznable wrote: Movie automatically fails for whitewash. All the firebenders are Indian, when I always interpreted the Fire Nation as inspired by China, if anywhere. Maybe if we had a Chinese director, the roles would be different. Wait, what?

In the movie, Zuko, Iroh, Ozai, and Zhao are Indian (Hindu) actors. Having seen all of the series, the Fire Nation has a culture (and, well, skin tone) more closely resembling China.