The Last Airbender

Holiday Box Office – TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON Dominates Worldwide with $379 Million in Six Days

by Nicole Pedersen    Posted: July 4th, 2011 at 10:47 am

We have reached the end of Paramount’s long, long seven-day launch of Transformers: Dark of the Moon.  So, on this no-news day, let’s take a look at some of the more salient figures regarding Michael Bay’s third installment in his blockbusting franchise. Yesterday, Tf3 broke the all-time record for the Fourth of July weekend at $97.5 million.  With Monday’s estimate of $18.9 million included, the record for the four-day holiday weekend has also fallen. The previous winner was 2004’s Spider-Man 2 with $115.8 million. The holiday take for Transformers 3 now stands at $116.4 million. So, that’s more.

Title	Weekend	Holiday	Total	Worldwide
Transformers 3	$97.5	$116.4	$181.1	$379

Images and Voice Cast for THE LAST AIRBENDER: THE LEGEND OF KORRA

by Brendan Bettinger    Posted: March 7th, 2011 at 9:31 pm

Oh, The Last Airbender, you stupid movie.  You are the first thing most people think of when they hear “The Last Airbender,” and I hate you for that.  There’s such a fantastic mythology at the heart of the Nickelodeon cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender, all of which was referenced but never explored in the lifeless film adaptation.

Avatar creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko are on a mission to reclaim the phrase “The Last Airbender” with The Legend of Korra, a new series set 70 years later when rebellious teenage girl Korra becomes the new avatar.  The voice cast has been announced: Janet Varney will play Kara — Kiernan Shipka, Daniel Dae Kim, David Faustino, Seychelle Gabriel , Lance Henriksen, P.J. Byrne, and JK Simmons will supply additional voices.

The Legend of Korra is scheduled to premiere sometime in 2012.  Check out two new images after the break.

The Razzie Awards Names THE LAST AIRBENDER the Worst Film of 2010

by Brendan Bettinger    Posted: February 27th, 2011 at 1:18 pm

The 2011 Razzie Awards were announced last night, and voters mostly just want you to know how much they hated The Last Airbender and Sex and the City 2.  The Last Airbender took home Worst Picture, Worst 3D, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, and helped earn Jackson Rathbone Worst Supporting Actor along with The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.  Meanwhile, the ladies of Sex and the City won both Worst Actress and Worst Screen Ensemble; the film itself was deemed Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel.  Hit the jump for the full list of winners.

2010 Razzie Awards Nominees Announced; THE LAST AIRBENDER and THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE Lead with 9 Nods Each

by Jeff Ames    Posted: January 24th, 2011 at 10:07 am

I gotta say, 2010 was a great year for movies. Golden Globe-winners The Social Network, The Fighter and The King’s Speech, along with 127 Hours, True Grit and Inception, are just a handful of the terrific films released last year. Of course the Academy Awards will tell us which one was the best (sarcasm), but now it’s time to give a shout out to the worst. Because, despite the excellent pedigree of 2010 films, there must always exist motion pictures who roll themselves in crap before making their way to the big screen (in case you’re interested, Matt already unveiled his Worst Films of 2010 list, which you can check out here).

Without further ado, I’m pleased to announce this year’s Razzie Award nominations. Top contenders include M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender, which scored in the Worst Picture, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, Worst Onscreen Couple (for the entire cast), Worst Prequel/Sequel, Worst Supporting Actress, Worst Supporting Actor (for bother Dev Patel and Jackson Rathbone) and, my personal favorite, Worst Eye-Gouging Mis-Use of 3D categories. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse also scored nine nominations, including two for each of its male leads, Robert Patterson (who received a bonus nom as well for his performance in Remember Me) and Taylor Lautner, along with a Worst Actress nod for Kirsten Stewart’s performance. Hit the jump for the complete list.

Worst 5 Films of 2010

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: December 30th, 2010 at 12:12 pm

There are plenty of terrible movies released each year and I don’t see most of them.  Either they’re not screened for critics, the screening conflicts with a film I want to see more, or I felt that my time could have been better spent another way.  But for all of these terrible films, there’s a fine line between “bad” and “insulting”.  The Switch is a bad movie, but that’s simply because it’s unfunny, lacks creativity, and wastes a talented lead actor in Jason Bateman.  But it doesn’t offend me.  The five movies that made this year’s worst list had to do something that insulted my intelligence and/or my belief that people should be treated equally no matter their sex, race, etc.  These are films I would wish on my worst enemy because then we could bond over having experienced these cinematic travesties.

THE LAST AIRBENDER Blu-ray Review

by Andre Dellamorte    Posted: November 25th, 2010 at 8:29 am

Oh, M. Night Shyamalan. You made The Sixth Sense, and the world was ready to declare you the new Spielberg, the new Hitchcock. And your follow ups had fans. Unbreakable, Signs. People liked these movies, but they didn’t have that Barton Fink feeling. But the next three films (The Village, The Lady in the Water and The Happening) kept getting worse and worse, with star Mark Wahlberg recently decrying The Happening as terrible. But with The Last Airbender writer/director M. Night was finally adapting material, which (one hoped) might get his head back in the game. Based on the Nickelodeon cartoon, there was a great story there and there was hope he might rebound. Noah Ringer stars as Aang, a mythical trained “bender” who can fight using air, water, fire and earth, and is called the last Avatar. He’s joined by water bender Katara (Nicola Peltz) and her brother Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) in protecting him from an evil Fire Lord army (which features Dev Patel, Cliss Curtis and Aasif Mandvi) that are bent on world domination. And my review of M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender on Blu-ray follows after the jump.

Reporter Puts M. Night Shyamalan on the Spot About His Career and THE LAST AIRBENDER

by Germain Lussier    Posted: July 19th, 2010 at 5:13 pm

For the amount of people who trounced M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender, very few had the guts and/or the chance to talk to him about it to his face.  There’s now a video from a foreign press conference (it’s labeled Mexico City but Shyamalan says he’s in France so who knows) where one ballsy reporter asked him if he was making films more commercial now because the audience had lost faith in him as a filmmaker.

“I think if I thought like you I’d kill myself. Everything you said is the opposite of my instinct as an artist. The way you just thought, I literally would kill myself,” Shyamalan said.  And that’s just the start of a near 3 minute answer. Check it out after the jump.

Weeeknd Box Office – DESPICABLE ME Clears $60 Million for First Place; PREDATORS Third with $25.3 Million

by Nicole Pedersen    Posted: July 11th, 2010 at 10:02 am

With summer 2010 so clearly dominated by reboots and sequels, it’s nice to see an original concept rise to the top for a change. Even with Toy Story 3 and The Last Airbender still out there occupying those precious 3D screens, Universal’s 3D animated Despicable Me exceeded most projections by taking first place this weekend with an estimated $60.1 million.

	Title	Weekend	Total
1	Despicable Me	$60,100,000	$60.1
2	Twilight Saga: Eclipse	$33,400,000	$237
3	Predators	$25,300,000	$25.3
4	Toy Story 3	$22,000,000	$340.2
5	The Last Airbender	$17,150,000	$100.2
6	Grown Ups	$16,400,000	$111.3
7	Knight & Day	$7,850,000	$61.9
8	The Karate Kid	$5,700,000	$164.6
9	The A-Team	$1,800,000	$73.9
10	Cyrus	$1,375,000	$3.5

Weekend Box Office – THE TWILIGHT SAGA ECLIPSE Total Climbs to $161 Million; THE LAST AIRBENDER Solid In Second

by Nicole Pedersen    Posted: July 4th, 2010 at 10:18 am

It looks like Summit’s hopes of breaking additional records with the third chapter in their Twilight Saga are not to be. Eclipse will just have to settle for the records they broke on Wednesday and, of course, with its bucket loads of cash. The film fell off by 16% on Saturday, effectively ending its quest to topple Spider-Man 2 as the all-time Fourth of July champ. At this point estimates give Eclipse a gross of $161 million over its first five days and $69 million for the traditional Friday-Sunday weekend frame. Monday should bring Eclipse’s six-day total to $176 million – $4 million short of that record. Meanwhile, The Last Airbender was also down, though its 13% Saturday drop was not as steep as its 8% Rotten Tomatoes rank suggested. Airbender now looks like it will come in above expectations – with $65 million in total projected through Monday. We’ll have full box office results tomorrow, but for now here is the weekend’s top ten:

	Title	Weekend	Total
1	Twilight Saga: Eclipse	$69,000,000	$161
2	The Last Airbender	$40,650,000	$57
3	Toy Story 3	$30,174,000	$289
4	Grown Ups	$18,500,000	$77
5	Knight & Day	$10,200,000	$45.5
6	Karate Kid	$8,000,000	$151.5
7	The A-Team	$3,025,000	$69.1
8	Get Him to the Greek	$1,185,000	$57.4
9	Shrek 4	$799,000	$232.1
10	Cyrus	$770,000	$1.48

Friday Box Office – THE TWILIGHT SAGE: ECLIPSE Continues To Shine with $121 Million in Total; THE LAST AIRBENDER Manages Second Place

by Nicole Pedersen    Posted: July 3rd, 2010 at 9:26 am

After its record-setting run on Wednesday, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse fell back to Earth a bit: taking in a more modest $24.2 million on Thursday and $28.5 million for Friday. Though that 65% dip on day two was steeper than expected, Eclipse is still formidable with its total domestic cume now estimated at $121.2 million after just three days. At this point it looks like Summit is looking at a weekend just shy of $80 million and a six day Holiday total in the $178 million range – putting them within striking distance of Spider-Man 2’s all-time July Fourth record of $180.1 million. Interestingly, the week’s other major release may help Eclipse reach that record. Though Paramount’s The Last Airbender opened to a decent $16.3 million on Thursday and added another $16 million Friday, the brutal critical response to M Night Shyamalan’s adaptation leaves its projection of $60 million by Monday in serious doubt – even with its higher 3D ticket prices. Check back to see how bright Eclipse can shine without major compettion.

	Title	Friday	Total
1	Twilight Saga: Eclipse	$28,500,000	$121.2
2	The Last Airbender	$16,000,000	$32.3
3	Toy Story 3	$10,400,000	$269.2
4	Grown Ups	$7,000,000	$65.5
5	Knight & Day	$3,400,000	$38.7

HANGOVER 2 May Keep Bradley Cooper Out of M. Night Shyamalan’s Supernatural Thriller

by Brendan Bettinger    Posted: July 2nd, 2010 at 4:45 pm

Right before critics dropped all sorts of hate on The Last Airbender, news leaked that M. Night Shyamalan was in the middle of setting up his next project: a supernatural thriller with Bruce Willis, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Bradley Cooper loosely attached.  It appears that Cooper’s attachment was loose enough that the production for the sequel to The Hangover takes precedence.  Shyamalan lamented, “Hangover 2… I don’t think Bradley can do [the movie] because of that.”  More after the jump:

M. Night Shyamalan, Dev Patel, Jackson Rathbone and Nicola Peltz Interviews – THE LAST AIRBENDER Director and Cast On 3D, Video Games, Bollywood and Saying Goodbye To TWILIGHT

by Ron Messer    Posted: July 1st, 2010 at 4:37 pm

There’s never been anything small about M. Night Shyamalan’s career.  As a mostly unknown 27-year-old filmmaker, his first studio film, Wide Awake, received a splashy March 15, 1998 premiere at New York’s Ziegfeld Theater with an introduction by sitting Vice-President Al Gore.  At age 29, his next film, The Sixth Sense stunned audiences around the world and reaped global grosses of $672 million along with two personal Oscar nominations for Shyamalan.  Later that year, his first screenplay for a studio film that he didn’t direct, Stuart Little, took in $300 million, worldwide.  Shyamalan’s next five films grossed $1.1 billion, worldwide.  The critical reception may have cooled over his past few films, but it served to shoot the stakes even higher for his new film, The Last Airbender, which opens today.  However, Shyamalan gives off the sense that he wouldn’t be happy with anything less than a monumental challenge.

Collider caught up with Shyamalan and some of his cast this week.  Hit the jump for the highlights from roundtable interviews with Shyamalan, Dev Patel, Jackson Rathbone and Nicola Peltz, including Shyamalan on his long, strange trip to 3D, Patel on Bollywood’s “God-awful” yet bankable movies, Rathbone on scoring his perfect Girlfriend and Shyamalan on why he doesn’t want “two feet tall Daniel Day-Lewises.”

Running Dialogue #12: In Which We Discuss THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE and THE LAST AIRBENDER (Special Guests: Debbie Michaud and Besha Rodell)

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: July 1st, 2010 at 1:54 pm

In this new episode of Running Dialogue, we discuss this week’s two big movies: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and The Last Airbender.  For Twilight, we are joined by Creative Loafing Atlanta editors Debbit Michaud and Besha Rodell.  We talk about the new movie being the least terrible one so far, the guilty pleasure the series provides but also its sexism, and the downright creepiness of the final book in the series, Breaking Dawn.  Then Curt, Russ, and I have a discussion about M. Night Shyamalan’s wretched The Last Airbender.  Curt and I advocate for the series, but we’re all forced to wrestle with the awfulness of the film adaptation.

Click here to listen to the new episode.  Also, you can hit the jump for a list of all the movies we’ve recommended so far.  Finally, click here to add Running Dialogue to your RSS feed.

THE LAST AIRBENDER Review

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: June 30th, 2010 at 9:20 pm

I hate everything about M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender.  I hate that it’s racist.  I hate that it takes a great, easy-to-adapt show and completely disrespects the material.  I hate the performances.  I hate the special effects.  I hate the borderline non-existent 3D that serves only to jack up ticket prices.  I hate the lack of imagination.  I hate the embarrassingly bad script that would be laughed out of a Screenwriting 101 class. I hate the consequences if this movie is a success at the box office.  I hate the consequences if it fails at the box office.  I hate that this movie exists.  And “hate” isn’t a strong enough word.

The Fire Nation Approaches in First Clip from M. Night Shyamalan’s THE LAST AIRBENDER – UPDATED With 2 More Clips

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: June 25th, 2010 at 9:58 am

The first clip from M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender has been released online and it shows the approach of The Fire Nation to attack the Northern Water Temple.  I just finished watching the first season of the animated series, Avatar: The Last Airbender, which is what the movie is technically based on.  This clip visually matches up with the show and the show lends itself to spectacular action scenes.  It also lends itself to a racial diversity that’s usually not seen in summer blockbusters and it certainly isn’t seen here.  Well, that’s not totally true.  The Fire Nation, the villains in the film, are of Indian descent.  They’re out to get Whitey.

But what I’m missing even more is that the show is funny.  Everything I’ve seen so far is deadly serious and I’m hoping that this is a decision of marketing and not a representation of the whole film.  But casting white actors for clearly Asian characters is all Shyamalan.  Hit the jump to check out the clip.  The Last Airbender hits theaters in 2D and 3D on July 1st.

Update: We’ve been given 2 more clips. All 3 are in one player after the jump:

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