Paramount has announced 2025 release dates for upcoming animated movies about “Avatar: The Last Airbender” and “SpongeBob SquarePants.”
The untitled “SpongeBob” movie has a May 23, 2025, release date and is produced by Nickelodeon Animation and Paramount Animation.
The untitled “Avatar: The Last Airbender” movie is coming Oct. 10, 2025, and is produced by Nickelodeon Animation, Paramount Animation and Avatar Studios. Both are getting wide releases.
Fans of the Nickelodeon series “Avatar: The Last Airbender” — not to be confused with James Cameron’s blue N’avi “Avatar” movies — have been patiently waiting for a big-screen adaptation ever since the formation of Avatar Studios was announced in 2021. Series creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, who stepped away from Netflix’s upcoming live-action “Avatar” adaptation, created the animation studio to expand the worlds of the main series and its sequel “The Legend of Korra.”
In June, it was revealed that not one, but three standalone “Avatar” films are in the works at Paramount and Nickelodeon. The 2025 film is the first to get a release date, and no details are available other than it being an “untitled Aang Avatar film.” Lauren Montgomery, who worked on “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” was already announced as the director, with Konietzko, DiMartino and Eric Coleman producing.
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The original “Avatar” series ran from 2005 to 2008 on Nickelodeon, with “The Legend of Korra” continuing its story from 2012 to 2014. The shows follow the adventures of the mystical Avatar, a person who can master all four elements of nature: air, water, earth and fire. The original series starred Avatar Aang, who must learn to master the elements to defeat the evil Fire Nation with his friends Katara, Sokka and Toph. Netflix is making a live-action version of the show, and production wrapped in June 2022.
On the “SpongeBob” side, the most recent film starring the lovably annoying yellow sponge and his Bikini Bottom friends was last year’s “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run.” Before that was 2015’s “the SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water” and 2004’s “The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie.” The iconic Nickelodeon TV show began in 1999 and is still on the air 13 seasons and more than 270 episodes later.
