M. Night Shyamalan Talks "Avatar: The Last Airbender"

Empire magazine got the chance to speak to director M Night Shyamalan about his upcoming adaptation of "Avatar: The Last Airbender," which he is currently in pre-production on.

"The actual plot is in a place where there are four tribes of people," Shyamalan told Empire. "And these people each have people within their tribe that have mastery over one element: water, earth, fire or air. They all live in a balance and harmony and once every generation there is born an individual who can bend – that is manipulate – all four of those elements and thereby keep a balance between all. They are kind of a Buddha figure to some extent. The story is about how, in this particular time, this avatar is born into the airbenders and disappears. Then all hell breaks loose and the fire nation basically commits genocide and eradicates the air tribe in the hopes of killing the avatar and taking over control of everything. This child then re-emerges, which is the beginning of our story. He reappears having been frozen in the ice — there is a whole story about how that happens — a hundred years later and this world is all f*cked up and he is the last airbender, but he doesn't want this job. He's forced into the position of putting the world back together again. It actually has a lot of Shakespearean overtones to it. There's lots of family angst, and fathers denying sons in different storylines."

While the story sounds interesting, it will be the special effects and incredible action that should make this film come to life. "Obviously [there will be] some breathtaking visual effects," he continued. "Just imagine if you saw a little girl bending water out of a glass into the air as an extension of her own personal discipline. It's three movies about the hero learning three elements. Live action."

Shymalan will shoot the film on stages in Philadelphia, as well as locations including Greenland. He acknowledges that this is a long way from anything he's done before. It's got the philosophical elements he likes, but it's also painting on a much larger canvas than any of his other films and speaking to a younger audience.