Percy Jackson Author Almost Gave Up on Future Adaptations After the Big-Screen Films Disappointed

Keisha Hatchett
·3 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

It’s no secret that Rick Riordan, who wrote the Percy Jackson book series and executive-produces the upcoming Disney+ live-action series, took major issue with the 2010 film Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief and its sequel Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters.

In his notes to movie producers in 2009, he called the Lightning Thief script “terrible” as a whole and maligned the age-inappropriate swearing as a “lazy attempt to make the script seem hip to teens.” Responding to a fan in 2020 who said he hated the films more than they did, Riordan shared that it was “my life’s work going through a meat grinder when I pleaded with them not to do it.”

More from TVLine

With Percy Jackson and the Olympians set to premiere Wednesday, Dec. 20 on Disney+, Riordan — who wrote the first two episodes with Jon Steinberg (Black Sails, Jericho) — is opening up about how his lackluster experience on the big-screen films nearly put him off of future adaptations of his beloved book series.

“After the movie experience, I basically wrote off Hollywood for a long, long time. I really didn’t want to have anything to do with the film industry,” he told our sister site Variety. “There were many years of me saying, ‘I don’t want to engage. I don’t want to think about other adaptations. I’m done.’”

But that all changed in 2019 when the Walt Disney Co. bought out 20th Century Fox, also acquiring the screen rights for Percy Jackson in the process. It took some convincing — and many meetings with different Disney executives — before he and his wife Rebecca signed onto the project as executive producers. Riordan then pushed for a TV series instead of another film adaptation.

“My feeling was always that television was the better format for Percy, because it allows us a larger canvas to tell more of the story,” he explained. “And to be more faithful to the source material, which is what the fans of the books really would love to see.”

Adhering to Riordan’s original wishes, the forthcoming series will feature an age-appropriate leading trio, including The Adam Project’s Walker Scobell as Percy Jackson, Aryan Simhadri as Grover and Leah Sava Jeffries as Annabeth.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Percy Jackson and the Olympians

The cast also includes the late Lance Reddick as Zeus, Adam Copeland (aka WWE’s Edge) as Ares, Lin-Manuel Miranda as Hermes, Megan Mullally as Alecto aka Mrs. Dodds, Toby Stephens as Poseidon, Virginia Kull as Sally Jackson, Jason Mantzoukas as Dionysus aka Mr. D and Jay Duplass as Hades.

Rounding out the ensemble are Glynn Turman as Chiron aka Mr. Brunner, Charlie Bushnell as Luke Castellan, Dior Goodjohn as Clarisse La Rue, Jessica Parker Kennedy as Medusa, Olivea Morton as Nancy Bobofit, Suzanne Cryer as Echidna, Timm Sharp as Gabe Ugliano and Timothy Omundson as Hephaestus.

Are you excited for the upcoming Percy Jackson and the Olympians series? Share your thoughts below!

Best of TVLine

Get more from TVLine.com: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Newsletter

Click here to read the full article.