Sci-Fi Film and Television Developments

Airbender
10/7/08 - SCIFI Wire reported that director M. Night Shyamalan is on track for a July 2010 release of his live-action version of The Last Airbender.  "It's going to be really cool," the director said about the Paramount picture on which he is now working. "I'm at the stage where we have [pre-visualized] about the last act of the movie. And because my normal approach to filmmaking is almost like I'm making an animated movie, to some extent--I think out every shot and analyze everything--it kind of lays out really nicely for a big CGI movie."  Expect a lot more colors, the director of The Happening said. "This fantasy movie may seem as if it's coming out of nowhere, but it's not," he said. "You'll see the seeds of it in Unbreakable and in Lady [in the Water] and in Signs, all of them a little piece of this and that, and the formality of The Village and the things in it should all go, 'Oh, I get it, these are all the colors of his personality.' As opposed to 'I don't get these other ones, how they relate.' Do you know what I mean? It should be more of an honest palette."  Shyamalan said that Airbender, which is based on the animated TV series, is very spiritual. "And sometimes in my movies, like Signs, they're more overt, but sometimes--like in The Happening--they're more about faith, and not necessarily religious faith. So when he steps outside, it's really just a holy moment."

06/12/08 - Director M. Night Shyamalan said recently that he's excited to be directing The Last Airbender, a live-action fantasy-adventure movie based on Nickelodeon's animated SF/action/martial-arts series Avatar: The Last Airbender.  "It has martial arts and spirituality and the supernatural, and it has Buddhist philosophy and Hindu philosophy--really, everything I talk about--all in one movie," Shyamalan said.  "It has a mythology," Shyamalan added. "It's Shakespearean. It's all this incredible stuff, and it has a balance. All these movies are plays on magic, whether it's Lord of the Rings or The Matrix or Star Wars even, and each one of them relates to me in a different way, in its belief system."

04/16/08 - Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies will release M. Night Shyamalan's live-action big-screen adaptation of the popular animated TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender on July 2, 2010.  The creators of the Nick TV series were heavily influenced by Japanese anime filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. The storyline revolves around a young hero who has the ability to manipulate the elements and stop a ruthless nation from destroying the three other nations.

AlienAlmanac.com    2008