*SPOILER WARNING*
The hit book series Percy Jackson, has had two film adaptations as well as a Broadway musical production. Now, the series has been turned into a straight to Disney Plus show. Many are wondering if this show will finally come close to being as great as the books.
The Percy Jackson book series follows a boy named Percy, who is the son of Poseidon. The series shows how he navigates being the son of a god, and the troubles that come along with being a halfblood, half human half god.
With the books being such a huge hit, selling more than 180 million copies, it was obvious that it needed a to screen adaptation. In 2010, Fox announced they were releasing the first movie of many. Fans were excited to finally see some of their favorite characters on the big screen. When the film was released, the fans were immediately disappointed. The characters were nothing like the book, and they passed right over important plot points. After two movies, only covering the first two books, they announced that they were done making the films.
A year later, a Percy Jackson Musical, The Lightning Thief, hit Broadway. Fans were weary about the musical after the disappointment the movies left. However, when they saw the musical, they were pleasantly surprised. It respected the original source material, and didn’t rush though important points like the movies did. It ran until 2020 when it closed because of Covid.
In 2022, Disney announced that they were going to make the Percy Jackson series into a straight to Disney Plus series. The fans first reaction was to push Disney to leave the franchise alone because of the failure from the first attempt. Plus, the fans were content with the stage adaptation of the first book, and didn’t want them to ruin that too. Then the writer of the books, Rick Riordan, promised he’d be working closely with Disney to make sure this time his books would be done right. The director of the stage production also would be involved, bringing in the charm of stage adaption. The first time around with the movies, Riordan was shoved out of the creative process, and made it known that he wouldn’t let it happen with the series, so filming began.
The first episode opened with a clip of Walker Scobell, who plays Percy, reciting the book’s most famous line, “Look, I didn’t want to be a halfblood.” Fans knew from that point on that this series was going to be good. The fans were right. With the actors that are the age of the kids in the book they play their parts with authentic reactions and emotions. The series relies on the books for the content, but also adds funny bits that bring more to the books and the characters.
The first season is only going to cover the first book of the Percy Jackson series, Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief. Which gives it so much time to cover this book in depth and give the characters time to develop their relationships with each other. This is unlike the movies since they only had two hours, they had to pick and choose what to keep in the movies. The series is halfway done with its fourth episode that just dropped on Tuesday, and fans are very happy with the pacing and quality of the show they’ve gotten so far.
The idea of Percy Jackson is hard to pull off because when you read the books you can imagine crazy things such as Minotaur and Centaurs, but when trying to make them real they just seem so fake. With the Percy Jackson show, you can tell they spent a lot of time trying to make the scenes look as real as possible, which is why fans fell in love with it so quickly.
With all of the thought and hard work that went into this series, it is set up to be a huge success, but only time will tell. Fans are excited to see how the other half of the series plays out for the characters, and how it wraps up in the end.
