M. Night Shylaman Talks ‘Airbender 2,’ But Will It Ever Get Made?

If you’re one of the many adults who didn’t pay to see “Avatar:” The Last Airbender” (unless you have kids), you may not be aware of how the children’s adventure fantasy picture ends (small spoiler ahead).

While it was probably obvious to most of the movie bloggers and avid readers following all along to the lead up of its release, to folks like us (generally not paying an ounce of attention beforehand) the fact that the film would end on a very chapter-like cliffhanger setting up two more films was a surprise up until the last 15-10 minutes of the film.

Making the recent press rounds for ‘Airbender,’ the much (and fairly)-maligned director M. Night Shyamalan, said he had the second installment of the trilogy all mapped out. For the uninitiated, the picture follows the adventures of Aang, a young successor to a long line of Avatars, who must put his childhood ways aside and stop the Fire Nation from enslaving the Water, Earth and Air nations — yeah, it’s a bit of that hokey mumbo jumbo fantasy sci-fi stuff.

“The third is more ambiguous, but the second one, I’ve written a draft that I’m really happy with and is darker and richer,” he told MTV. “And it has a wonderful antagonist in it in Azula, who’s kind of like our only real, pure antagonist in the series, so I’m excited about that.”

That’s nice and all, but will the picture actually be green lit? Shyamalan’s eighth feature-length film did far better and respectable business at the box-office then expected (the NYTimes called it a “surprise“), as it was savagely excoriated by critics (it’s one of the most poorly reviewed films of the year so far). However a recent LA Times article put the estimated cost of the picture at a whopping $280 million — the production budget being twice the size of Shyamalan’s previous pictures and the exorbitant marketing budget alone far exceeded $100 million.

So with that massive tally to contend with ‘Airbender has a long way to go to just break even.

However, it could happen. After just week in release, ‘Airbender’ has made just shy of $80 million in the U.S. and kids films tend to have long shelf lives when they hit that age zeitgeist. Unless kids reject the picture outright, it should be able to be able to hit the $125 million mark, maybe even the $150 mark (though that’s maybe pushing it, we’ll see).

Then there’s all the international markets where ‘Airbender’ hasn’t even opened yet. One could think this U.S.-made Nickelodeon kids show may not translate overseas, but its boilerplate fantasy elements could
connect with the same audiences that went gaga over “Avatar.” James Cameron’s blockbuster may have grossed $2.7 billion (and more to come with its August re-release), but around 3/4 of that number came from overseas (the picture accumulated $ 749 million in the U.S, the subsequent dollars were all dollars, $1.9 billion in total).

‘Airbender’ connecting with audiences overseas is a big if and surely Shyamalan’s expensive sequels will not be green lit unless it starts to hint at breaking even (DVD could help too), but it’s not over until the fat lady sings and this writer is not counting it out yet.

This writer also, believe it or not actually enjoyed the picture for what it was — a kids film aimed not at Shyamalan fans (there are far many more that exist in the movie community that there deserves to be), but at 7-11 year olds. And while it is so narratively truncated it feels like pages of a book being abruptly ripped out to quicken the pace, for what it was — a guileless little kids movie (if you had problems with the dialogue you’re not watching it right) — the child within was satisfied (though he’s aware he speaks for almost no one on the Playlist team, that’s ok).

The speed-ramping was far more effective here than it was in say Zack Synder’s, take-itself-far-too-seriously, “Watchmen,” the CGI was fine for what it was (worked well with the water blasts) and those complaining about the 3D, well it’s no worse than any other conversion 3D film aside from “Clash Of The Titans” which was a rushed, new low in 3D conversion.

Perhaps it was low expectations. Perhaps critics and fans wouldn’t have been so disappointed in the “Star Wars” prequels if they would have just simply realized, “oh, this unsophisticated picture isn’t for me, not in the slightest.”