Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series is getting another adaptation: today on Twitter, he and his wife Becky announced that Disney will be making a TV series for its streaming service, Disney +.
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The Lightning Thief
Riordan didn’t reveal any additional details beyond the pickup: just that it’ll be coming to the streaming platform in some form. In a followup statement (via Variety), the author indicated that the project would be a television series:
We can’t say much more at this stage but we are very excited about the idea of a live-action series of the highest quality, following the storyline of the original Percy Jackson five-book series, starting with The Lightning Thief in season one.
The five-book series (The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Titan’s Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth, and The Last Olympian), followed a boy (and demigod) named Percy who begins to encounter the mythological creatures and figures of Mount Olympus, and is accused by Zeus of stealing his master lightning bolt.
https://twitter.com/rickriordan/status/1261008593077374977
The novels have been adapted before: Chris Columbus helmed a film based on the first novel, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief in 2010, while Thor Freudenthal directed a sequel, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters in 2013. However, the films didn’t catch on, and a third installment of the film series, The Titan’s Curse, never went before cameras.
The films were produced by 20th Century Fox, and after Disney acquired the studio, it seems as though it’s looking for a second chance at the story for its own platform. The YA series feels as though it’ll be well-suited for Disney’s family-friendly attitude towards projects on the platform, and hopefully, it’ll be more successful this time around.
I did watch the 2010 film but have almost no memory of it. I recall the book better. Need to finish reading the series! My inner 11-year-old insists.
Makes me wonder whether Disney has tried to get the Narnia license back. Had they foreseen their channel they might have hung on to that.
Well, I doubt it would be worse than the films.
And my daughter, a diehard Percy Jackson and Rick Riordan fan, will argue that this is another reason to get Disney+
Be true to the books and make that world visually awesome, and the fans will come. Some will b*tch, but that’s what rabid fans do.
@1 There’s the Percy Jackson series, followed by “Heroes of Olympus” which tossed in Roman gods and demigods, then the new Apollo series which has many of the same characters. Lots and lots of reading.
Really happy to see this getting an adaptation though I’m a little disappointed they didn’t go for an animated series. The work by fanartist Viria is second to none and made me want to see an animated version. Hopefully this version will be more in line with the Broadway musical which captured the spirit of The Lightning thief and Percy’s sarcastic and mischievous Bart Simpson-esque character. Plus it was queer as hell. Good luck Disney +, you may never own the rights to Harry Potter, but with the Shitshow that is Fantastic beasts you might come out on top!
Yes I liked the movies I can’t wait!!!
My 13 year old daughter is ecstatic over this. Devours all of Mr. Riordan’s book. Even went to see the musical (constantly blares the soundtrack all over the house…). She HATES the movies (with reason). Hoping Mr. Riordan maintains some semblance of control over this so the project stays true to the books this time :)
Hopefully Rick will retain a fair amount of control over the series, but I’m still worried. Disney is notorious for cutting LGBTQ+ characters from their media, and R.R.s books are full of some of the best representation a child could be given.
@8 I haven’t read the books in ages, but doesn’t it take a while for LGBTQ+ characters to show up? If Disney is feeling gun shy about such things they could stick to the first series.
The first offical LGBTQ character (not including the gods) doesn’t officaly show up until the third book, but he is also 10 years old at the time, and doesn’t reveal that he’s gay until much later, like the third book of the roman series. So, they have time to get to grow and for rick to push it.
So…any chance they can get Alexandra Daddario another role? No? Just me?
The first movie was awful, mostly because they tried to turn Annabeth into a Clarissa-type warrior bitch and they simplified/stupfied the ending. The second movie is actually pretty good, mostly because Annabeth acted like book Annabeth and they included a pretty good Clarissa (Leven Rambin). I was disappointed they didn’t do the third book.
I’m open to a TV show of the books that keeps the snark and cleverness with increasing amounts of real pathos as the books get to the closing. My kids were/are huge fans of all of the books (reading the Apollo Series Book 4 now) so this could be fun.
@@.-@: Thanks! I’m about to need some new distractions, and this sounds ideal.
@12 my problem with the second movie was the climax, where they decided they wanted to rush all of the rest of the books, by bringing the big bad back alive already, when they had a pretty easy battle with tyson and percy fighting Polyemphus already
THIS IS WHAT WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR! I am so excited!
I am very skeptical of any YA fantasy adapted by Disney, especially considering how terrible the trailers make the Artemis Fowl movie look. However, Percy Jackson is more PG than Artemis Fowl, so if they want to target a young audience they shouldn’t need to overhaul the source material. And hopefully the two movies released by 21st Century serve as a cautionary tale. So we will see
Why can’t they just do regular channels?
They made a Percy Jackson musical?!? (No wonder Disney fastened onto this particular franchise; I will be horribly, horribly disappointed if there isn’t a musical number in every other episode).
I recall watching the films and thought they were perfectly fair entertainment, but have never read the books (probably because they came out after I aged out of the ‘Young Adult’ market).
@12: I didn’t see the movie, but I’ll argue they might have chosen to do so (change Annabeth) to avoid the inevitable (and probably unflattering) comparison with Hermione. A the time they did those movies, Harry Potter was going strong and I feel some of the production choices might have been made in attempts to distinguish themselves from HP.
I’ll be curious to see what Disney comes up with this time around. Hopefully, something I’ll be able to watch with my kids and we’ll all enjoy. Hopefully, they also make Annabeth’s character more… palatable. I didn’t think Riordan entirely got the whole “strong girl” right.
Some life long fans have been waiting to see this….but but what happens if fans can not afford Disney plus or have it? I am kind of frustrated!
Soooooooooo glad that this is happening. I started reading these books in 6th grade and immediately loved them. I then watched the movies and thought they were terrible considering that they tried to sum up the last four books in one movie and completely butchered the details in the first movie. So, yeah, very excited for this.