‘Avatar’ leaker arrested after animated film released months ahead of schedule

Just weeks after the upcoming animated film The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender leaked online in its entirety, the individual responsible for the leak has been placed behind bars.

An unidentified 26-year-old man was arrested in Singapore, on charges that he illegally accessed a media server without authorization, according to The Strait Times.

Local authorities received a report on April 16 that portions of an unreleased film was leaked onto social media platforms.

The man was arrested within a day of that report, with various electronic devices seized by authorities, along with the unauthorized copy of the film.

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

The charge of unauthorized access to computer material carries a maximum prison term of seven years, with the potential of a fine upwards of $50,000.

The Paramount film was initially set for a theatrical release in October 2025, though it was delayed to January 9, 2026 and then to October 9, 2026, when the studio ultimately decided to roll it out on the Paramount Plus streaming service instead.

It was this decision to keep it from theaters that seemingly motivated this man to leak the film online, as he teased on social media platform X a few weeks ago.

Back on April 11, an X user from Singapore dubbed @ImStillDissin claimed, “Nickelodeon accidentally emailed me the entire Avatar aang movie,” though that doesn’t seem to be the case, according to the charges against him.

He also threatened on April 12, “If paramount doesn’t post a trailer within the next couple days or something I’ll livestream the movie alongside some Peggle Deluxe gameplay.”

That same day, another fan asked him not to leak the movie, and the X user responded, “If Paramount actually get to promoting it then sure.”

He also bragged on April 13, “And no anon I’m not getting extradited over a cartoon movie chill out,” and another tweet that read, “Need fit ideas for my public execution tomorrow.”

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That same day, the full movie leaked online through another unrelated account, also based in Singapore, as clips spread on sites like 4chan.

The last tweet from @ImStillDissin is from April 14, when he said, “All the accounts I used to follow on here way back are talking about this I really am gonna end up in Guantanamo.”

While the leak was clearly a laughing matter for the leaker, others affected by the leak were far from pleased, including animator Julia Schoel, who worked on the film.

She took to X on April 14, stating, “We worked on the aang movie for years with the expectation that’d 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.”

“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+, (2/3)” she added.

“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 (3/3),” she concluded.

The film is a continuation of Nickelodeon’s beloved Avatar: The Last Airbender animated TV series, with a voice cast that includes Dave Bautista, Taika Waititi, Geraldine Viswanathan, Ken Jeong, Steven Yeun, Freida Pinto and Ke Huy Quan.