What Are The Chances of 'Percy Jackson' TV Series Finally Getting it Right?
It's a very special feeling that book fans get when an adaptation is announced, comparable only to the feeling when that very adaptation ruins everything you loved. That's what once happened to 'Percy Jackson' fans.
A new Disney Plus project marks a second attempt to bring the modernized world of the Olympians to screen.
Teaming up with the series author Rick Riordan, the creators decided that it was high time to stick to the original story while adapting 'Percy Jackson '. The announcement of Walker Scobell as the actor to portray Percy has got fans' hopes really high, because this young actor just seems to finally fit the canon.
Rick Riordan himself broke the news of Scobell's casting. It turns out that the young actor was cast back in January and has already had a couple of chemistry reads with his fellow co-stars – whose names, however, are yet to be revealed.
Scobell was wearing an orange 'Camp Half-Blood' T-shirt when he heard the news. According to Riordan, the boy is a book fan – he boasts to have read everything through 'Trials of Apollo'.
The fact that the title role was secured by an actual 13-year-old, and the production directly involves Riordan himself might actually point to Disney's desire to make up for poor cinematic fate of Percy Jackson. Earlier, the son of Poseidon was portrayed by Logan Lerman in two movies released in early 2010s. Lerman was already 18 when he was cast, while the book canon describes Percy being 12 when he learns about his demigod origin. This and many other steps away from the canon made both fans and critics very unhappy with the first movie, and even though creators tried to muscle through their mistakes in the sequel titled 'Sea of Monsters' released in 2013 (hey, at least they made Annabeth blonde), the franchise eventually died away.
Now, with 'Camp Half-Blood' heading back to screen (not the big one, however), it seems that the story of Olympians and their modern kids actually has a chance to get a nice, book-accurate cinematic portrayal.
The release date, along with the rest of the cast, is yet to be unveiled. Among the names that we already know are director James Bobin, and writers Rick Riordan and Jonathan E. Steinberg.