The leak on X started late Saturday night about six months ago Aang Was scheduled to premiere on Paramount+. User @ImStillDissin posted two short clips from the film. He claimed, “Nickelodeon accidentally emailed me the entire Avatar Aang movie.” He also threatened to stream the entire movie if Paramount did not release an official trailer, and he also posted a photo from the film’s end credits, revealing previously unknown voice-over actors and roles. The media posts by @ImStillDissin were later hit with a copyright strike and removed.
But within 48 hours, links to download the full film appeared on 4chan and All over the web, fans said they had successfully pirated and watched the almost finished and “beautiful” animated film.
While some argued that Paramount should be punished due to certain creative and marketing decisions regarding the film, others noted what a blow this leak was to the animators and production crew. Many members of the team took to social media to express their grief and disappointment.
“We worked on the Ang film for years with the hope that [sic] We will get a chance to celebrate all our hard work in theatres. To see people casually leak the film and pass our shots around on Twitter like candy,” animator Julia Shoell wrote on X on Tuesday.
The user behind @ImStillDissin, who is not revealing his real name for fear of legal repercussions, tells WIRED that he came across the film almost by chance and did not expect his post to cause such a stir in the entertainment world. “I was just trolling when I posted those clips,” he says. “I was just hoping for the best, not for the whole thing to end like that.”
(While WIRED did its due diligence in verifying that the person who spoke to us was behind the @ImStillDissin
According to @ImStillDissin, a screen-grabbed version of this Avatar: Aang, The Last Airbender It was circulating among people he knew from his days in the hacking community, one of whom shared it with him. He claims, “Broadly speaking, the supply chain for movies and TV is filled with unsafe companies and vendors and lax oversight.” He notes that there are two different Spongebob Squarepants The films were leaked months ahead of their release date in 2024. “Someone on 4chan who wasn’t happy with me drip-feeding stuff posted a copy of the draft script [of the new Avatar film] That was about two years ago,” says @ImStillDissin.
Neither Nickelodeon nor its parent company Paramount have confirmed the hack, nor have they issued any statements on the matter. He also did not respond to requests for comment.
Originally announced in 2021, Avatar: Aang, The Last Airbender Marked the first production for Avatar Studios, a division of Nickelodeon’s animation department.
Some people found it appropriate to pirate and share the film due to the recasting of the voice actors. Last year, during a Reddit AMA, casting director Jenny Jue wrote that from the voice cast Avatar The TV show, which aired on Nickelodeon in the 2000s, was not returning due to efforts to “match the actors’ ethnic/racial backgrounds with the characters they are playing”.
<a href