Prolific filmmaker M Night Shyamalan has taken a big detour with latest movie ‘The Last Airbender’. And film fans will be hoping that this children’s movie will spark an upturn for an undoubtedly talented but frustrating movie man.

The prolific Indian-American shot to stardom with 1999 thriller ‘The Sixth Sense’, which he both wrote and directed.

Follow ups ‘Unbreakable’ and ‘Signs’ were also huge success both in terms of box office and critical success.

But things took a turn for the worse with ‘The Village’. ‘Lady In The Water’ fared little better while ‘The Happening’ took a panelling from critics.

To hit back with an adaptation of a children’s animated TV series could be seen as something of a wild idea. Pondicherry-born Shyamalan cast relative unknowns before calling on ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ star Dev Patel, pictured, to play Zuko.

But he is hoping that the casting will have the same effect as a certain movie which had a huge impact worldwide back in 1977 - ‘Star Wars’.

Noah Ringer, who plays hero Aang, was a martial arts expert with no acting experience. A similar situation to lead man in the original Star Wars trilogy, Mark Hamill, who also featured in the original TV series ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’.

And Shyamalan explains: “That was definitely an agenda. If it was Robert Redford as Luke Skywalker that would have been a whole different thing, for me.

“I believed Mark Hamill was Luke Skywalker, I believed those people were who they were enough to let go. I wanted that for our movie.” Shyamalan admits casting was a completely different process than usual. Unlike his other movies, the 40-year-old could not tweak the original story and he says: “When I’m writing an original I’m willing to amend the heart of the person with an actor I find and create a third entity. With this one I had specific targets, find people that had this heart. I didn’t want to feel like I compromised.”

‘The Last Airbender’ is showing in cinemas across the UAE