New Avatar: The Last Airbender Movie Dominates Streaming in First Week & Proves It Should’ve Gone to Theaters
Avatar: The Last Airbender has made its comeback with a brand new feature film release, and it’s doing so well on streaming that it’s proof that Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender should have gotten a theatrical release instead. That was the initial plan, anyway. When franchise creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael DiMartino helped to form the Avatar Studios production team with Nickelodeon and Paramount, one of the first projects announced was a feature film coming to theaters. But it faced some major delays behind the scenes for a couple of years.
Following a few delays from intended theatrical windows, the biggest update came when Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender confirmed it would be coming exclusively to Paramount+ and skipping theaters entirely. In the first week of release since the film’s streaming launch a couple of days ago, this has already proven that fans would have seen it in theaters as it is now the top movie streaming with Paramount+ across 28 different countries (according to FlixPatrol).
Avatar: The Last Airbender Movie Takes Over Paramount+
Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender made its debut with Paramount+ on July 25th, and in the past couple of days has quickly become the top streaming movie on the platform in the United States and 27 other countries. When coupled with the fact that the film’s limited theatrical screening release in New York and Los Angeles sold out in minutes, it’s clear that there was a lot of support built into the film. And those fans definitely would have supported an official theatrical release for the long awaited movie. But it was a very rough road for the film.
Seeing this success on Paramount+ is still a great sign. The film has been doing well with critics on Rotten Tomatoes thus far, but it was unfortunately stolen and leaked long before it was set to actually release. Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender was originally slated for a release with Paramount+ this October, but you can’t help but think that detrimental leak ended up changing Paramount’s plans for the release as it was instead dropped this week as part of the San Diego Comic-Con 2026 weekend.
What’s Next for Avatar Studios?
This success on Paramount+ is also great news for the wider Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise moving forward. Avatar Studios has their next TV series, Avatar: Seven Havens, making its own streaming debut with the platform on October 9th, and it tells a story set after the events of The Legend of Korra. It’s going to introduce a brand new Avatar as she has to deal with a ruined world, and it’s curious to see what’s next for the franchise from that point on if both of these streaming releases are hits.
DiMartino and Konietzko confirmed that they are now in the works on their next secret project with Avatar Studios. It’s not a new movie, but a TV series with the potential for a release in the future. If both of these Avatar releases end up doing well with Paramount+ and continue to do so, we could see many more TV shows and movies in the future. So it’s time to check it out if you haven’t.
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HT – FlixPatrol
