‘Avatar’ leaker arrested after animated movie launched months forward of schedule

Simply weeks after the upcoming animated movie The Legend of Aang: The Final Airbender leaked on-line in its entirety, the person chargeable for the leak has been positioned behind bars.

An unidentified 26-year-old man was arrested in Singapore, on fees that he illegally accessed a media server with out authorization, based on The Strait Occasions.

Native authorities acquired a report on April 16 that parts of an unreleased movie was leaked onto social media platforms.

The person was arrested inside a day of that report, with numerous digital gadgets seized by authorities, together with the unauthorized copy of the movie.

The Singapore police’s investigation revealed that this man obtained distant entry to a server and downloaded the movie from there, later posting clips of the movie on social media.

The cost of unauthorized entry to laptop materials carries a most jail time period of seven years, with the potential of a high-quality upwards of $50,000.

The Paramount movie was initially set for a theatrical launch in October 2025, although it was delayed to January 9, 2026 after which to October 9, 2026, when the studio in the end determined to roll it out on the Paramount Plus streaming service as an alternative.

It was this determination to maintain it from theaters that seemingly motivated this man to leak the movie on-line, as he teased on social media platform X a number of weeks in the past.

Again on April 11, an X consumer from Singapore dubbed @ImStillDissin claimed, “Nickelodeon unintentionally emailed me your entire Avatar aang film,” although that doesn’t appear to be the case, based on the fees in opposition to him.

He additionally threatened on April 12, “If paramount doesn’t submit a trailer throughout the subsequent couple days or one thing I’ll livestream the film alongside some Peggle Deluxe gameplay.”

That very same day, one other fan requested him to not leak the film, and the X consumer responded, “If Paramount truly get to selling it then certain.”

He additionally bragged on April 13, “And no anon I’m not getting extradited over a cartoon film relax,” and one other tweet that learn, “Want match concepts for my public execution tomorrow.”

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That very same day, the complete film leaked on-line by means of one other unrelated account, additionally primarily based in Singapore, as clips unfold on websites like 4chan.

The final tweet from @ImStillDissin is from April 14, when he stated, “All of the accounts I used to comply with on right here method again are speaking about this I actually am gonna find yourself in Guantanamo.”

Whereas the leak was clearly a laughing matter for the leaker, others affected by the leak had been removed from happy, together with animator Julia Schoel, who labored on the movie.

She took to X on April 14, stating, “We labored on the aang film for years with the expectation that’d we’d get to have fun all of our arduous work in theaters.. simply to see individuals unceremoniously leak the movie and cross our pictures round on twitter like sweet.”

“I don’t like seeing individuals use Paramount’s terrible determination to take away the film from theaters to justify leaking it. I completely perceive people not eager to pay for/assist paramount+, (2/3)” she added.

“However pirating the film after its launch would have a minimum of been higher than this. That is extremely disrespectful to the entire arduous work the artists put in (3/3),” she concluded.

The movie is a continuation of Nickelodeon’s beloved Avatar: The Final Airbender animated TV sequence, with a voice forged that features Dave Bautista, Taika Waititi, Geraldine Viswanathan, Ken Jeong, Steven Yeun, Freida Pinto and Ke Huy Quan.