Posted in: Movies, Paramount+, TV | Tagged: avatar, Avatar The Last Airbender, The Avatar: Aang The Last Airbender

Avatar: The Last Airbender Film: Screening Company Security to Blame?

A screening company is reportedly investigating whether a security breach resulted in the Avatar: The Last Airbender film being hacked.

Less than two months after news broke that a 26-year-old man was arrested in Singapore, more details about the hack/leak of Paramount+'s Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender are coming to light. In case you need catching up, an individual took to social media, claiming that the entire film was "accidentally" emailed to them. Along with releasing clips from the film (totaling more than 3 minutes of alleged footage), the individual threatened to livestream the entire film if Paramount didn't release a trailer or some kind of preview sooner rather than later. Before that could happen, the film would blow up online, with additional reporting noting that the person who leaked it was not the hacker and that the "Avatar: The Last Airbender" film had been shared by various sources.

In the latest piece from The Hollywood Reporter, sources noted that Paramount's investigation into the matter included ruling out the company's responsibility for the hacking. Once that was determined, the investigation shifted to examining any third-party platforms with access to the film whose security may have been compromised. That brings us to Vision Media, a screening company responsible for awards promotions that works with NBCUniversal, Disney, Netflix, and Paramount. According to the THR report and a recording the news site received from an April 22nd conversation, Vision Media CEO Jason Deadrich tells gray-hat hacker Jason Sawyer that hackers "seem to have access to content" on its servers, but he "didn't know how" they were getting access. "Our remediation plan is quite extensive."

Sawyer shared that he received a tip about vulnerabilities in Vision Media's network that were allowing hackers access. "I validated the steps I had received from a threat actor and confirmed this was a real issue," he says. "I took steps for reasonable disclosure and contacted the company." But based on the report, the tip wasn't the first time Vision Media had security issues. "They've been in your network for ages. They've been bouncing around into various different things," Sawyer says Deadrich at one point. For their part, Vision Media has been conducting an internal investigation, along with, according to Deadrich, "cooperating in the external investigations with law enforcement and the groups affected."

To be clear, there hasn't been a definitive conclusion to the investigation, and no official fault has been place on Vision Media at this point. In the recorded conversation, Deadrich noted that he "can't determine what specifically happened or how it happened." With "ongoing investigative processes" still in play, Vision Media declined to comment for THR's report.

Avatar: The Last Airbender Team Calls Out Hack/Leak

"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," animator Julia Schoel (Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Helluva Boss) posted on social media, the first of a three-part response. 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+, 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."

In response to a follow-up question, Schoel explained that there are significant differences between hacking/leaking and pirating. "Leaking a movie before release undermines the entire effort at its most vulnerable moment. No marketing buildup, premieres, etc, which harms the film's reputation and affects future opportunities for the artists who worked on it," Schoel wrote. "Pirating, on the other hand, happens after the film has already had the chance to reach audiences through official channels, and does not harm its reputation." Here's a look at Schoel's opening reaction to the controversy, followed by reactions from a number of other individuals who were directly involved in bringing the project to life:

Paramount+'s The Avatar: Aang, The Last Airbender stars Dave Bautista, Eric Nam, Jessica Matten, Dionne Quan, Román Zaragoza, Steven Yeun, Taika Waititi, Geraldine Viswanathan, Dee Bradley Baker, Peta Sergeant, Freida Pinto, and Ke Huy Quan.

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