The two Percy Jackson arrived with mixed results, but fans of the books have long hoped that the beloved series would get a live-action adaptation that’s on par with the Harry Potter films. You might not know it, but the two series are neck-in-neck in popularity with young readers, so there’s a very good reason why news of a Percy Jackson series coming to Disney+ was met with a groundswell of excitement.
The reveal was delivered by Percy Jackson author Rick Riordan, who has been petitioning Disney to give his books a faithful adaptation once he learned the House of Mouse would acquire the live-action rights through its purchase of Fox, and it looks like his campaigning worked. Riordan posted a video on his Twitter account announcing the new series along with the following statement:
Hey Percy Jackson fans, for the past decade, you’ve worked hard to champion a faithful on-screen adaptation of Percy Jackson’s world. Some of you have even suggested it would be a great series for Disney Plus. We couldn’t agree more! 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. Rest assured that Becky & I will be involved in person in every aspect of the how. There will. be much more news in the future, but for now, we have a lot of work to do! Buckle up, demigods. It’s going to be a fantastic, exciting ride!
In an especially classy move, actor Logan Lerman, who played Percy in the films, offered his support for the project and joined fans in hoping for a series that will stay true to the books this time around.
Excited to see this! Hope it gets the adaptation the books deserve. Congrats @rickriordan https://t.co/ReE6EjJICV
— Logan Lerman (@LoganLerman) May 14, 2020
Lerman is no doubt aware of Riordan’s displeasure with the Fox films. In a lengthy 2018 blog post, Riordan got very candid about how his attempts to “save” the first movie and even shared his emails to producers where he derided their attempts to “sex up” his books that were aimed at a 9-12 year old audience. The author also revealed a little known secret that even the biggest authors have very little say in Hollywood adaptations of their works. In the same post, Riordan expressed his hope that Disney would take another stab at the Percy Jackson series even while acknowledging that this could lead to yet another scenario where he’s not creatively involved. But it certainly looks like that’s not the case, and the author appears to be jazzed to bring the series to Disney+.
You can watch Riordan’s announcement video below:
https://twitter.com/rickriordan/status/1261008593077374977
(Via Rick Riordan on Twitter)
