Percy Jackson and the Olympians will bring Rick Riordan’s fantasy series to life once again, but fans shouldn’t expect the Disney+ TV series to be a word-for-word adaptation of the novels.
While speaking with CBR, Percy Jackson and the Olympians director James Bobin said that although the TV series will stick pretty closely to the novels, there will be some differences.
“I think there is a mixture of those things,” Bobin said. “We are very careful, and we love these books for a reason. We love them for what they were, and I remember reading the scripts for the first time, and it said, ‘Percy Jackson, bracket 12 [years old]’ after his name, and I’m like, ‘OK good. That’s a good start.’ Because the world from a twelve-year-old’s point of view is emotionally complex, and this is a very complicated point. But yes, there will be huge amounts of it that everyone will know. There will be small amounts of it that they will be pleased by because it’s a choice we’ve made to make things a bit different than the book.“
So long as the TV series is better than the two feature film adaptations from over a decade ago, I think Percy Jackson fans will be pleased. It helps that Rick Riordan is much more involved this time around. The writer had accused the two Percy Jackson movies starring Logan Lerman of putting his life’s work “through the meat grinder,” but has a much more positive take on the upcoming TV series. “If you’re a fan of the books or even if you just love a good adventure, you are going to love this show,” Riordan said.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians stars Walker Scobell as the titular 12-year-old demi-god as he is “just coming to terms with his newfound divine powers when the sky god Zeus accuses him of stealing his master lightning bolt. With help from his friends Grover and Annabeth, Percy must embark on an adventure of a lifetime to find it and restore order to Olympus.“
The first two episodes of Percy Jackson and the Olympians will debut on Disney+ on December 20th, followed by new episodes weekly.