Report: Avatar Studios' Scrapped Fire Lord Zuko Movie Would Have Told the Red Lotus Origin Story

Avatar Studios had a second animated film well underway before Paramount shut it down, according to a pair of Knight Edge Media reports in August.

The site says a Fire Lord Zuko film was the furthest along of the studio's other movie projects. It reportedly reached the voice-recording stage with some previsualization done, and Steven Yeun, who voices Zuko in Avatar Aang, signed on largely for it. Knight Edge says Paramount, not the creators, decided to cancel it.

As described, the film was a political thriller set shortly after the Hundred Year War. Someone kills the dragons Ran and Shaw and then targets Iroh, drawing out Zuko as the next victim. Knight Edge's August 20 follow-up says the killer was Xai Bau, founder of the Red Lotus and an old friend of Iroh's from the war, making the film the anarchist group's origin story. A new actress had reportedly been cast as Azula.

None of this has been confirmed. At Comic-Con in July, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko said the old leaks about their film plans were half right and half wrong, and DiMartino has said the studio is focused on TV series for now. The Red Lotus is getting a story of its own anyway: DiMartino's Korra graphic novel trilogy The Long Game explores the group's origins.