Shyamalan casts ‘The Last Airbender’

According to Entertainment Weekly, yours truly’s favorite director, M. Night Shyamalan, has done principal casting for ‘The Last Airbender’.

M. Night Shyamalan has found the cast for The Last Airbender, his upcoming live-action film based on the popular anime-inspired Nickelodeon series. The youthful group is mostly filled with unknowns who are likely to be household names by the time Paramount opens the first in its potential three-film franchise in July 2010. After an open casting call in Texas, Shyamalan discovered karate star Noah Ringer and offered him the part of Airbender’s 12-year old hero, Aang, an Avatar with superpowers who must stop the Fire Nation from destroying the world. ‘Twilight”s Jackson Rathbone has been asked to play Aang’s pal Sokka, while Nicola Peltz (‘Deck the Halls’) will star as his sister Katara. Genial singer Jesse McCartney, meanwhile, is negotiating to play against type in the role of the Fire Nation’s evil prince Zuko.

Ever since this morning’s announcement of the cast, people around the web  have been pissin’ and moanin’ – the  usual  crabby comments about Mr. Shyamalan and  that Avatar’s creators  wouldn’t have chosen these kids – i.e., the color of their skin compared to the characters in the cartoon. Shyamalan surely isn’t doing the casting alone, so I say lets wait til we’ve seen the first pics of these kids in costume.