Geekery: Disney+ is Adding a Percy Jackson Series
The son of Poseidon is coming to the small screen. Creator and writer Rick Riordan has confirmed that a new series is in development and promises that it’s not like the movies.
While it’s not as all encompassing as Harry Potter, the books have a place in the hearts of lots of kids. Fans got two bad movies with average box office take before the big screen adaptations fizzled out. Last year the author posted a blog entry raised the idea of a Disney-led project (who picked up the rights when they acquired Fox); it also revealed some of the (rather large) issues he had with Fox’s movie adaptations. The idea is now a project, and it seems he’s happy with how it’s going…
— Rick Riordan (@rickriordan) May 14, 2020
There’s a lot of excitement around this revival and hope that it will meet the quality we’ve seen in other Disney+ original series. The series will have a lot of material to work with – 5 main novels (The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Titan’s Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth, and The Last Olympian), and two companion books (The Demigod Files and The Demigod Diaries). Disney will also be more willing to faithfully cover the books because of their main audience – kids and their families.
There are other tent-pole IPs in the Fox catalog Disney can still mine for new programming – the studio has already confirmed a National Treasure series. We could see the return of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, a Maze Runner reboot or expansion, a Night at the Museum series, or some more of Narnia. Only time will tell.
