One of the hottest family programs on television at the moment is Nickelodeon’s kung fu and anime-influenced cartoon AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER. SIXTH SENSE helmer M. Night Shyamalan previously announced plans to adapt this series into a live-action feature film and recently spoke to Sci Fi Wire about it.

“It has martial arts and spirituality and the supernatural, and it has Buddhist philosophy and Hindu philosophy–really, everything I talk about–all in one movie,” Shyamalan said in an interview while promoting his latest writing and directing effort, THE HAPPENING.

“It has a mythology,” Shyamalan added. “It’s Shakespearean. It’s all this incredible stuff, and it has a balance. All these movies are plays on magic, whether it’s LORD OF THE RINGS or THE MATRIX or STAR WARS even, and each one of them relates to me in a different way, in its belief system.”

Shyamalan recalled sensing “some kind of religion” in Star Wars when he saw the film for the first time at age 7. “I couldn’t articulate it when I was in [a] station wagon between my parents; back then, you could sit in the front seat,” he said, laughing. “I felt the same thing watching this show. I was like, ‘This is the Eastern-philosophy STAR WARS movie.’ I started thinking about what it meant to me, if I could imbue it with the things that are important to me. And, lo and behold, here we are.”

I have yet to sit down and watch the AIRBENDER series but it’s on my radar. The series has been on the air since 2005 and has picked up numerous awards. It’s one of the few series on TV in the U.S., animated or live-action, that deals with Eastern themes including martial arts, Buddhist thought and what could be interpreted as the channeling of qi energies.

M. Night Shyamalan’s live-action AIRBENDER is expected to be released in 2010. It will follow another live-action adaptation of an even more popular martial arts-themed animated series when James Wong’s DRAGONBALL, starring Justin Chatwin, James Masters and Chow Yun-fat arrives in 2009.