Remember yesterday’s Dev Patel, the lead actor of Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire,” signing on to join the cast of M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Last Airbender’ story?
Well, there’s a big twist to the story that Variety left out of their reporting according to EW.
You may recall that fans of the Nickelodeon kids series were upset at the initial casting. In the original Nick TV show, Asian and Inuit culture permeate the series, yet none of the film’s previously announced four leads (Jesse McCartney, ‘Twilight’s Jackson Rathbone, Nicola Peltz and newcomer Noah Ringer) are of Asian descent.
Well, the announcement of Patel’s inclusion was seemingly a move to squash those concerns, but apparently they’re bigger than just that and Patel has actually replaced McCartney as the film’s lead.
According to EW, “Paramount Pictures have been under fire for their initial all-white casting choices,” and apparently McCartney was replaced because he didn’t “mesh” with the rest of the cast (suuuure), but he’s still evidently getting his full fee.
We can tell this news greatly upsets you and has ruined your day. Just sit down and take a deep breath.
