One of the most loved anime of all time just got leaked and is spreading all over social media. Earlier this month on a Saturday night all over X (formally known as Twitter) was the movie Avatar: The Legend of Aang leaked for anyone to watch. But how is this? How did someone manage to leak a movie before they announced its release date? Who’s at fault? What are the movie creators saying? And what are fans’ reaction to all this?
The leaks began on a Saturday night on X, six months before it was scheduled to premiere. The name 0f the person who leaked it hasn’t been released for legal reasons, but his username is ImStillDissin. At first, he posted only two clips of the movie onto his X account.
“Nickelodeon accidentally emailed me the entire Avatar Aang movie,” he claimed. He also threatened to stream the entire movie if Paramount didn’t release an official trailer, and he posted a still from the movie’s end credits, revealing the casting members and their roles.
Although his account was taken down after 48 hours after releasing the two within those 48 hours, links to download the full movie appeared on 4chan and X, where some users also directly streamed the film.
While the movie was spreading fast, online animators that worked on the movie had some statements to make.
“We worked on the Aang movie for years with the expectation that’d we’d get to celebrate all of our hard work in theaters. Just to see people unceremoniously leak the film and pass our shots around on twitter like candy,” animator Julia Schoel wrote Tuesday on X.
Jason Scheier, a production designer at Sony Animation who worked on the film for several months, says it’s disappointing to see fans share the leaked movie without regard for the creatives’ future career prospects.
“Revenue determines if sequels get greenlit and how a film covers its production and marketing costs. This is devastating to the team and to the studios producing the movie.” Plenty of more people who worked on the film are upset of the recent news.
In the midst of all this, fans have seem to be divided. I interviewed Alexzander Jamies, a fan of the series, to get his thoughts on the situation.
“I don’t think they deserve to get leaked. I just think they’re dumb for emailing it to the wrong guy,” he says. “If they release it officially I would I still watch it on theaters.”
Another fan of the series, Adrian, shared his thoughts about the leak as well.
“It’s crazy to me that they managed to leak the entire thing. I opened up Twitter and just watched the whole thing”, he said. “But if they release it in theaters, I’ll still go see it.”
Though some fans online have different views on the recent leak, some saying that they deserve it.
“While I have not streamed this leak, or any other leak, I find myself with no sympathy for Paramount+”, user JohnB1 tweeted. Another user by the name my Prep had this to say about it. “Shout out whoever leaked this film. It was obvious Paramount had no interest in respecting this film nor the folks who put so much into it. Now, this art belongs to the people, free of grubby, billionaire-built pay walls.”
As the leak will continue to spread all over the internet what will be Paramount’s next move? And what could this mean for future movies? How can companies prevent future leaks? Or do companies need to give what fans want and listen to them to prevent something like this from happing again?
