Earlier this year, it was announced that Disney Plus was working on a TV reboot of the Percy Jackson franchise, following the studio getting the rights to the hit YA book series from Fox. It’s still early days on the project right now, but creator Rick Riordan has just shared an encouraging update about the show on Twitter. Or, to be more accurate, his wife Becky shared it.
“Great news to share this morning,” she wrote on social media. “Yesterday our team sent the #PercyJackson pilot script up the chain of command at the TV studio for notes and approvals. Why is this news? Adaptation is a very slow collaborative process so we are excited for every step in the right direction!” Riordan then retweeted his wife’s tweet, much to the excitement of fans, as it’s currently sitting at over 6K likes.
https://twitter.com/rickriordan/status/1331286991514841094
Riordan’s novels, which follow the teenage son of Poseidon and his friends at Camp Half-Blood, have previously been adapted by Fox as two movies, made in 2010 and 2013, starring Logan Lerman in the title role. Fans have mixed feelings about the Chris Columbus-directed films, though, as they play fast and loose with the source material. The TV show is set to be much more faithful, however, which is to be expected with the Riordans overseeing the scripts.
There are five books in the core Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, with the Disney Plus project due to adapt one per season. The Riordanverse has expanded into many other spinoffs as well, so the potential is there to create a wide-ranging shared universe. Assuming that the Percy show is a success, that is. Or even gets all the way to the screen. There are some D+ series that get stuck in limbo, after all (see: the Lizzie McGuire reboot).
But things seem to be going smoothly at the moment and we’ve got our fingers crossed. Watch this space for more on the Percy Jackson TV show.