The Percy Jackson books may have sold close to 70 million copies worldwide, but fans were left more than a little underwhelmed by the feature film adaptations, as was author Rick Riordan. Neither The Lightning Thief or Sea of Monsters could crack 50% on Rotten Tomatoes and a combined box office haul of $427 million was viewed as a major disappointment, while the writer has since disavowed the duology entirely.
However, he is heavily involved in the upcoming Disney Plus reboot, with an episodic format almost guaranteed to fare much better now that the mythology will be given more time to breathe. The series is still a long way from going into production with the pilot script currently under review by the Mouse House hierarchy, but you’d imagine the most optimistic of plans is for Percy Jackson to run for five seasons, with each one covering a single book.
The studio might not be stopping there, though, because we’ve now heard from our sources – the same ones who first told us Percy Jackson was being rebooted for streaming long before it was officially confirmed – that if the main show proves successful enough, the various supplementary works could be adapted into Disney Plus series as well to create an entire shared universe.
The Demigod Files and The Ultimate Guide featured short stories, interviews with the book’s characters, maps and dictionaries, while graphic novel Demigods and Monsters further expanded the world and The Demigod Diaries contained four new tales. There’s plenty of source material there to inspire countless sequels and spinoffs, then, but it’s all dependent on how Percy Jackson fares with audiences whenever it eventually premieres on Disney Plus, which based on the current slow rate of development, might not be for a while yet.