Whereas displaying off an early idea picture of the aged-up Staff Avatar at a San Diego Comic-Con panel on Thursday afternoon, Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender director Lauren Montgomery recalled one among the movies’ earliest leaks in a rollout that is been affected by unlucky leaks. The picture in query was what Montgomery known as the “Avengers shot,” with the characters posing collectively that leaked out of CinemaCon in 2024 earlier than it was taken down.
“This was one among the very first humorous tales about this picture. We had a model of this picture, very same portray. The characters regarded a little bit totally different,” Montgomery mentioned. “Our manufacturing designer Jake [Panian] was by no means actually pleased with it. After which Paramount involves us and says, ‘We need to go to CinemaCon.’ Jake is, like, ‘Completely not. It is gonna leak.’ They’re like, ‘No, no, no, no. It will not leak. All the things’s protected.’ All the things leaks. [Jake]’s like, ‘Effectively, in the event that they’re gonna leak it, I am gonna repaint the entire factor.’ And he did. And it seems to be lovely, and it seems to be wonderful, and we have used this picture a lot of occasions. And naturally, it leaked. Cellular phone digital camera footage of it from a bizarre angle. After which it is used as, like, official art work in freakin’ interviews and posts in every single place. So, good time.”
Transferring on from the anecdote, Montgomery walked by way of a slideshow of early character design idea artwork. She confirmed an Aang with a chinstrap-style beard, many iterations of Zuko’s coiffure, a number of variations of Sokka (“The observe was alsays don’t let ‘Sokka get TOO sizzling,'” Montgomery mentioned), Toph in a “metalbending police get-up,” and a pregnant Katara. “We moved away from that for our personal causes however a lot of these variations influenced the last model of Katara we see in the movie,” Montgomery mentioned.
In mapping out how the crew would then animate these rendered pictures for the characteristic movie, Avatar co-creator Bryan Konietzko mirrored on sustaining the significance of Avatar’s defining animation type in the identical panel that was attended by his fellow Avatar creator Mike DiMartino and most of the core voice forged of the film. “Considered one of the first issues that we talked about was what the medium was going to be. Nobody informed us, however we simply assumed: It is a characteristic movie. There’s unimaginable stuff, like Spider-Verse, Arcane… persons are doing actually stylized, lovely issues with 3D characters which are form of pushed extra in direction of to 3D. So we simply assumed initially, ‘Oh, I suppose that is what we’ll do.’ And we began attempting to determine what that will appear like.
“However then in the future it simply hit me,” Konietzko continued. “I used to be like, ‘What are we doing? That is Avatar. That is a love letter to Japanese anime. This wants to remain 2D. These characters should be hand drawn.’
Our pals and friends in the business — in the Western business, particularly — they need to do 2D, however they’re being pressured to do 3D. And once more, there’s lovely stuff being completed in 3D, however as artists, we must always be capable of discover all these totally different mediums. Mike and I had been identical to, ‘ what? We’re gonna do 2D,’ and fortunately, our bosses weren’t forcing us to do 3D. So that is what we did. We’re attempting to maintain this artwork kind alive a little bit longer.”
Creating a New Langauge System
Konietzko additionally walked by way of the course of of making a new written language for the universe shifting ahead, known as Avatarian.
A glance at the written language!#SDCC2026 #ATLA #AvatarAang pic.twitter.com/AtkpZyt8h8
— Cartoon Universe (@CartoonUV) July 23, 2026
“After we got here again to do Avatar studios, we had been working with our cultural consultants,” Konietzko mentioned. “Now that we had extra time and assets for some tasks, we had some discussions and realized doing the conventional factor we have been doing, the place we’re utilizing Chinese language as the rhythm language for the Avatar world. That was nice, and we love that stuff, nevertheless it did not make as a lot sense with all the form of real-world cultures that we pull from for inspiration in Avatar. So I used to be like, ‘All proper, I will create a written language for Avatar.’
“So I simply locked myself in my workplace for like three months. However I by no means like in fantasy stuff when the fantasy language simply seems to be like English in cosplay, you understand? It simply seems to be like the Roman alphabet in cosplay. I used to be actually impressed by Hangul, which I had studied after I was engaged on Avatar in Korea. I constructed this language that it is a phonetic language that — if something might be expressed with IPA, the Worldwide Phonetic Alphabet, it may be translated to Avatarian, and it creates these little syllable blocks, form of Hangul. After which I take advantage of, like, these actually simplified 4 ingredient symbols as our form of base radicals for the language.“
Different Avatar Aang reveals from the SDCC panel:
New Legends Will Rise. Avatar: Seven Havens, coming to Paramount+ Oct ninth pic.twitter.com/oKc3zXiLNn
— Paramount+ (@paramountplus) July 23, 2026
- Tagah, the new airbender launched in the movie voiced by Dave Bautista, shall be an upcoming playable character in Avatar Legends: The Preventing Sport, which we gave an 8.
- The film’s soundtrack shall be out there to stream on July 25. It is the first time Avatar music is on the market the identical day the mission comes out, DiMartino famous, and teased a bodily media launch down the line.
- Talking of bodily media, Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender is getting an artwork guide filled with behind-the-scenes particulars. It will likely be out there in November.
Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender comes out on Parmount+ Saturday, July 25. We gave it an 8, calling it a “lovingly crafted and gorgeously animated film” with “motion scenes and settings [that] are thrilling and deserved to be seen on the huge display as an alternative of streaming after a scuttled theatrical launch and unlucky leak modified plans that will have made this extra of an occasion for followers.”
Leanne Butkovic (she/they) is an Editorial Undertaking Supervisor at IGN, the place they’ve additionally written about TV, motion pictures, and video games.