Paramount cancels Avatar: The Last Airbender RPG as Iroh voice actor calls leadership ‘evil’
Paramount Games Studio confirmed this week that Saber Interactive’s planned Avatar: The Last Airbender AAA RPG, announced in 2024 and originally slated for the 2027-28 window, has been cancelled.
The Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise is having an awful week.
Paramount Games Studio confirmed to IGN this week that the AAA RPG from Saber Interactive, announced in 2024 and originally targeted for a 2027-28 release window, has been cancelled. The game was reportedly being developed as the biggest video game release in franchise history.
The official explanation from Shawn Kittelsen, senior vice president and head of creative and production at Paramount Games Studio: “That’s a project that wasn’t in production when we came in. We didn’t start this iteration of Paramount Games until last fall, after the Paramount Skydance merger. So that game was not in production.“
Translation: the new David Ellison-led Paramount leadership inherited the project, didn’t see commercial value in it, and shut it down.
Greg Baldwin’s response
Greg Baldwin, the 65-year-old voice actor who voiced Uncle Iroh in season three of the original Nickelodeon series and reprised the role across multiple Avatar properties, did not respond diplomatically.
His full X post on Saturday: “Hard truth… I can speak freely because I’m 65 years old and my pocketful of fks is seriously depleted. Working as a paralegal at various studios in LA for thirty years…I had the opportunity to observe studio executives closely. They’re generally a slippery and clueless bunch who shouldn’t be allowed near anything remotely creative…but the new regime at Paramount is straight up evil. I assure you. These soulless btards have nothing but contempt for a show about grace and redemption and the struggle against fascism.“
Baldwin added separately: “They. Do. Not. Value. The. Franchise.“ He also argued the executives should lose their jobs to AI.
This is rare. Veteran voice actors with active careers do not usually call studio leadership “soulless evil” on a public platform. Baldwin’s age and his explicit “depleted pocketful” framing read as a deliberate decision that he no longer cares about industry blowback.
The leaked film
Baldwin’s outburst lands at the worst possible moment for Paramount’s Avatar strategy.
Avatar: Aang, The Last Airbender (originally titled The Legend of Aang), the animated theatrical sequel that was supposed to launch the franchise’s next era, leaked online in April 2026 after Paramount moved it from a theatrical release to a Paramount+ streaming-only debut on October 9, 2026.
The leak came from outside Paramount’s internal systems per the studio’s own investigation. The Hollywood Reporter later traced it to a group in Singapore that obtained an unwatermarked HD copy. Variety reported the individual responsible was arrested and faces up to seven years in prison and a $50,000 fine if convicted.
Animator Julia Schoel, who worked on the film, posted publicly: “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. Paramount’s awful decision to remove the movie from theaters to justify leaking it was disrespectful to all the hard work the artists put in.“
The fan response was sympathy for the crew, contempt for the executives.
The Seven Havens hack threat
The hackers responsible for the Aang leak have publicly threatened the next Avatar project too.
Avatar: Seven Havens, the upcoming Nickelodeon animated series scheduled for 2027 on Paramount+, is reportedly the next target. Per CBR’s reporting, the hackers stated: “There are a substantial number of people who have access to internal stuff like this. There’s more under the tip of the iceberg.“
Storyboards and marketing material for Seven Havens have already appeared on 4chan ahead of any official release.
Paramount may sell the franchise
Bloomberg reported on Saturday that Paramount Skydance may be considering selling the Avatar franchise rights to another studio entirely.
That ties to the broader story of Paramount potentially divesting major kids’ television assets to clear EU antitrust objections to the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger. Nickelodeon, where Avatar lives, is one of the brands Paramount has signaled it could sell to satisfy regulators ahead of the July 7 European Commission deadline.
If Avatar gets sold, the franchise’s next owner inherits an active fanbase, a leaked theatrical film already viewed by millions illegally, a hacked production pipeline, a cancelled AAA video game, an Iroh voice actor publicly calling the previous leadership evil, and a confused multi-year development slate.
That is a difficult package to inherit. It is also potentially the best outcome for fans, since the alternative is staying with the Paramount leadership Baldwin just called soulless.
The Avatar fans have been through worse. The Netflix live-action era, the original M. Night Shyamalan film, the various creative team departures over the years. The franchise survived all of it because the core property is genuinely beloved.
Whether it survives the current Paramount Skydance era depends on what happens at the July 7 EU deadline and whether Bloomberg’s franchise sale reporting becomes reality.
For now, the RPG is dead, the film leaked, the next series is being targeted by hackers, and Uncle Iroh is publicly furious. Tough month at Paramount Games Studio.
Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
IGN (June 6-7, 2026), primary verified reporting on the Avatar: The Last Airbender AAA RPG cancellation including the Paramount Games Studio SVP Shawn Kittelsen quote on the project status
TheWrap / Yahoo News (June 7, 2026), verified Greg Baldwin X post including the full “straight up evil” and “pocketful of f**ks depleted” quotes
ScreenRant (June 7, 2026), verified Baldwin context as Iroh voice actor in season three of the original Avatar: The Last Airbender and reprised role across franchise properties
Bleeding Cool (June 7, 2026), verified Baldwin quotes including “They. Do. Not. Value. The. Franchise.” and verified franchise sale Bloomberg context
Game Rant (June 7, 2026), verified Saber Interactive AAA RPG details and the 2027-28 window
Deadline (April 16, 2026), primary verified reporting on the theatrical-to-streaming shift and the Avatar: Aang leak investigation including the Julia Schoel animator quotes
Variety (April 17, 2026), verified Paramount internal investigation determining the leak did not come from within the studio
The Hollywood Reporter / Knightedge Media (April 25, 2026), verified Singapore source of the leak and the arrest reporting
CBR (June 5, 2026), verified Avatar: Seven Havens hacker threat including the “more under the tip of the iceberg” quote
Cosmic Book News (May 6, 2026), verified Avatar: Aang voice cast including Eric Nam, Jessica Matten, Román Zaragoza, Dionne Quan, Steven Yeun, and the broader leak context
Bloomberg (June 7, 2026), verified Paramount may consider selling Avatar franchise rights as part of broader kids’ TV asset divestiture
Wikipedia, verified Avatar: Aang October 9, 2026 Paramount+ release date and full voice cast