After the entirety of Paramount’s upcoming film “The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender” was leaked online, I believe the only way for the film to still succeed is with the return of a theatrical release.

The film was originally supposed to be released in theaters on Oct. 9, until the studio decided to exclusively stream it on Paramount+. The decision outraged the fans who were looking forward to the return of Nickelodeon’s successful franchise and also those who were affiliated with the film’s production.

It’s absolutely ridiculous that one of the most anticipated films of the year was changed from a theatrical release to a streaming service. It’s just corporate greed in my eyes, but unfortunately this decision by Paramount became the least of problems.

Two clips from the anticipated film were leaked on April 11 and the entire film was later leaked online on April 12 by an anonymous X account, ImStillDissin. According to Variety, the X account claimed that the leak came from someone at Nickelodeon, the subsidiary of Paramount Global, who accidentally emailed him the entire Avatar Aang movie.

“Nickelodeon accidentally emailed me the entire Avatar aang movie,” ImStillDissin said.

It was later reported by The Hollywood Report that ImStillDissin, received the full movie by a friend from his hacker days. He claimed he never planned to leak the entire movie out of respect for the animators.

Despite his clear restraint to share the entire movie online, it was eventually leaked online by others months before its scheduled release.

Julia Schoel, one of the animators for the movie, explained on X how excited they were to celebrate their years of work once the film officially released in theaters until Paramount decided to stream it exclusively on Paramount+. Despite Schoel tweeting on X that she agrees it was an awful decision, she also tweeted that it does not justify the leaks.

“We worked on the Aang movie for years with the expectation that 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,” Schoel said. “I don’t like seeing people use Paramount’s awful decision to remove the movie from theaters to justify leaking it. I totally understand folks not wanting to pay for/support paramount+.”

I feel incredibly sorry for the talented hard-working animators and other people involved, because the hard work they’ve been doing for years for the film was entirely leaked months before its official release. It is a great offense to those who have worked years on one of the most anticipated films of the year.

While I strongly believe the idea to change the theatrical release to Paramount+ was a ridiculously bad decision, I agree with Schoel. It does not justify leaking and spoiling the hard work of the individuals who worked on the film.

According to another one of Schoel’s tweets, she said she would rather have the film be pirated after its release instead of it being shown around everywhere on twitter and social media.

“But pirating the movie after its release would have at least been better than this. This is incredibly disrespectful to all of the hard work the artists put in,” Schoel said.

This entire catastrophe was corporate karma, because of Paramount’s greed to have the movie be exclusively on Paramount+ only. According to Comicbook, the film has a reported budget of $80 million. I can only imagine that with the budget they’ve poured into the film, it is going to lose millions in profit since it is still six months away from its official release.

Of course I don’t believe the entirety of the movie’s budget is in jeopardy, but it will still be a significant financial loss for the studio because there have already been millions of views on pirated websites.

I strongly believe one of the few ways Paramount and Nickelodeon can still profit from the movie they’ve been working on for years is by moving up the release date. Releasing the movie significantly sooner while it’s still trending, can possibly save them money.

Additionally, I’m leaning towards a theatrical release before the movie streams exclusively on Paramount+. Since it’s one of the most anticipated films of the year, a cinematic release could create more revenue. Afterall, a cinematic experience is what fans wanted and expected in the first place.

At the time of writing, Paramount has not made changes to the film’s upcoming release. However this catastrophic leak may compel them to change plans, given how widely and quickly the film has been exposed. Hopefully, changes will be made as soon as possible that benefit fans and still reward the hard work of those involved in the film.