First Pics from M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’

M. Night Shyamalan, you and I haven’t gotten along since Signs. With The Happening, I finally took you off my buddy list and I told you not try to IM me anymore. We were finished.

Or so I thought.

USA Today released the first two pictures from his upcoming adaptation of the animated show, Avatar: The Last Airbender, marking the first entry in the planned trilogy. (Not to be confused with James Cameron’s Avatar, due out December 18th.)

In the pictures we see Aang (Noah Ringer) and his nemesis Prince Zuko (Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionaire).

Avatar: The Last Airbender is set in an alternate world in which the “nations” are divided along the lines of elements: the Water Nation, the Earth Nation, the Fire Nation, and the Air Nation. The titular Avatar was supreme master of the four elements and was predestined to protect the rest of his world against the evil Fire Nation. Abruptly disappearing from view, the Avatar resurfaced in the form of 12-year-old Aang, the last of the Airbender tribe. Discovered frozen in ice near the South Pole by two young members of the Water tribe, Katara and Sokka, the irresponsible Aang had to summon up enough strength — and self-esteem — to do battle against the villainous Firebenders.

Shyamalan’s Avatar: The Last Airbender opens everywhere on July 2, 2010.