A franchise-killing fantasy detested by its own creator sets out on a streaming odyssey

The 2010s saw almost every YA literary series adapted for the big screen, and an alarming number of them failed to make it past the first hurdle after bombing spectacularly at the box office. By the admittedly low standards of the time, then, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief and sequel Sea of Monsters combining to earn almost $430 million at the box office was a minor triumph.

In spite of such moderate commercial success, fans were less than thrilled at the huge deviations made to the source material during its journey to the big screen. That being said, nobody was more upset than author Rick Riordan, who hasn’t exactly been shy in blasting 20th Century Fox for butchering his beloved mythology and turning it into generic big budget escapism.

Sea of Monsters is perfectly acceptable and moderately diverting entertainment, which is the bare minimum to be expected from a $90 million fantasy blockbuster. This time around, Logan Lerman’s title hero sets off on an odyssey to track down the mythical Golden Fleece, but there are naturally a cavalcade of nefarious enemies and beasts of legend to contend with along the way.

Even though a Riordan-approved episodic reboot is in the works, Sea of Monsters has been riding the waves on-demand to capture the attention of Rakuten subscribers, as per FlixPatrol. In the aftermath of its release, Lerman was confident another installment would happen, but planned threequel The Titan’s Curse never ended up materializing – something its creator was no doubt thrilled about.