How far he’s come! Rick Riordan‘s Percy Jackson book series has created a life of its own with Disney+ adapting the books into a TV show set to premiere in December 2023. And even though Rick is at the helm of the upcoming show, it took a while to get here. The books were first adapted in the 2010s. The film series starred Logan Lerman as Percy — and Rick has never shied away from sharing his feelings about the movies.
Keep reading for everything Rick has said about the two Percy Jackson movies.
In May 2020, Rick took to Twitter in a series of posts, announcing that a new show based on the fantasy novels would be headed to Disney+, with the author acting as a showrunner, writer and producer.
“We can’t say much more at this stage, but we are very excited about the idea of a live-action series of the highest quality, following the storyline of the original Percy Jackson five-book series, starting with The Lightning Thief in season 1,” his statement read, per Variety.
News of the Percy Jackson series comes 10 years after the first and second books were adapted into feature films starring Logan.
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief hit theaters in 2010, followed the story of a young boy named Percy Jackson and how his life changed after finding out that he’s actually the son of the Greek god, Poseidon. In 2013, the second installment Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters premiered before the film series came to an end.
The two films were immediately met with disappointed fans, as multiple aspects of the original book series were lost in the adaptation. From aging up the actors (Percy is 12 in the first book and Logan was 17 in the first movie), to deleting whole characters and beloved scenes from the books.
Rick — referred to as “Uncle Rick” by PJO fans — wasn’t happy about the changes, either.
“It’s refreshing that Uncle Rick hates the PJO movies even more than we do,”a fan wrote on Twitter in 2020. Rick responded, “Well, to you guys, it’s a couple hours’ entertainment. To me, it’s my life’s work going through a meat grinder when I pleaded with them not to do it.”
“After the movie experience, I basically wrote off Hollywood for a long, long time,” Rick told Variety in October 2023. “I really didn’t want to have anything to do with the film industry. There were many years of me saying, ‘I don’t want to engage. I don’t want to think about other adaptations. I’m done.’ But when it started to become clear that something was going to happen with me or without me, I had a long talk with Becky, my wife. We said, ‘Well, if something’s going to happen, it’s probably best to give it one more shot.’”
Scroll through our gallery to see all of Rick’s quotes on the Percy Jackson movies.
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