Why are the Percy Jackson movies and series so different?

The Percy Jackson universe was created by Rick Riordan in a literary series of 5 books released from 2005 to 2009 and adapted for the big screen for the first time in 2010, when “Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief” debuted in theaters, earning a sequel in 2013 with the title “Percy Jackson and the Sea of ​​Monsters”, where the characters were played by real actors.

Even so, the first live-action versions of the story, which previously only belonged to the pages, did not please fans of the books, as evidenced by the platform that brings together film and television reviews, Rotten Tomatoes, where it is revealed that the level of approval of the two films did not exceed the average of 50%.

Among the reasons why cinematographic productions were a failure is the distance from the original story, since the personalities of the characters were changed, important figures were excluded, terms and concepts that are part of the work’s mythology were not completely explained, and those that were, were not faithful to the description ofRiordan.

So much so that the author himself revealed that he disliked the work done several times, one of them on X (formerly Twitter), when, as reported by Entertainment Weekly, he responded to a fan who stated that it was “refreshing that Uncle Rick hates the PJo even more than us.”

At the time, he wrote:

Well, for you, it’s a few hours of entertainment. For me, it’s my life’s work going through a meat grinder when I begged them not to do it. So yes. But its alright. All good. We will fix this soon. “

Almost in agreement with the popular expression “a promise is a debt”, Riordan is involved in a much more coherent adaptation of his work: “Percy Jackson and the Olympians”, a series in which the author acts as one of the series’ producers, and was responsible for co-writing the pilot episode with the producer/showrunner Jonathan E. Steinberg.

Since the beginning, the series, which has had episodes released weekly on Disney+, has surprised fans of the books, who constantly express their opinions on social media. See some of them!

But what makes the Percy Jackson films and series so different?

Despite being inspired by the same works, the Percy Jackson films and series have some reasons for being so different, as explained by the director James Bobin It is Jonathan E. Steinberg at the “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” panel at last year’s New York Comic Con (via The Direct).

The main reason was pointed out by Coilwhich he said was the chosen format, as this way, they can have more time to explore the story.

I mean, we have the advantage of time, I think, you know. Charles Dickens used to write chapter books and then publish them once a week, and that’s been a good format for 150 years, so I quite like the idea.”

Even though with the series it is possible to bring more details to the plot, and better address the complexities that the plot carries, Coil argued that this is the only advantage in relation to films, since each type of production is unique, and there was nothing to learn from the first adaptations to bring them to the series because they are different.

And I think we had the advantage of, if we had eight… half an hour or 40 minutes, or whatever it was to tell the story of the chapter book itself, that’s certainly an advantage for us. You know, the movie – 90 minutes is not a lot of time to tell this very complicated story. But no, there are really no lessons to learn. And I think that movie was what it was and this is what it is, and it’s just a different thing.”

Steinberg came out in agreement with Coil by stating that they did not try to correct the wrong choices that film productions made, they just tried to do something that they truly believed was coherent with Riordan’s story.

When we reached this stage, we were, on the one hand, aware of some choices that, I think, did not please some fans. On the other hand, I think we were really committed to doing what felt right – what are the right choices rather than trying to correct the wrong ones? – and we really work with them, testing them and testing them, and then we commit to them. And the result, I think, looks more like something we deeply believe in than something we’re trying to fix.”