Percy Jackson & the Olympians is a feature film series based on the novel series of the same name by the author Rick Riordan. The series was distributed by 20th Century Fox, produced by 1492 Pictures, and consists of two installments. The first film, ', was directed by Chris Columbus and was released on February 12, 2010. The second installment, ', was originally intended to be released in March 2013 but was instead pushed back to August 7, 2013, and was directed by Thor Freudenthal. The series has grossed nearly $430 million at the worldwide box office. The films follow the adventures of demigod Percy Jackson and his comrades at the demigod training ground of Camp Half-Blood. In the first film, Percy must go on a quest to save his mother from the underworld and prove his innocence when he is accused of stealing lightning from Zeus. The second film revolves around Percy’s escapades as he must retrieve the legendary golden fleece from the Sea of Monsters, or the Bermuda triangle, which is the only thing that will save the camp from the forces of darkness.
Films
''Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief'' (2010)
In June 2004, 20th Century Fox acquired feature film rights to the book. In April 2007, director Chris Columbus was hired to helm the project. Filming began in April 2009 in Vancouver. The film was released on February 12, 2010 and was met with mixed reviews upon release and was a commercial success and grossed almost $227 million at the worldwide box office against a budget of $95 million. The plot revolves around a sixteen-year-old Percy Jackson who discovers that he is the son of Poseidon, Greek God of the sea, and goes to Camp Half-Blood, a training camp for demigods, the half mortal children of Greek gods. When Percy's mom is kidnapped by Hades, and Percy is accused of stealing Zeus' lightning bolt, Percy and his friends go on a quest to rescue his mom from the underworld, leading them across America to find Persephone's pearls, while proving that Percy is not the lightning thief and is innocent.
''Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters'' (2013)
In October 2011, 20th Century Fox announced a based on the second book, The Sea of Monsters. The film was released on August 7, 2013. Percy Jackson, son of Greek god Poseidon, discovers he has a half-brother, Tyson, and embarks on a journey with his friends to retrieve the Golden Fleece to save a magical tree containing the spirit of Zeus's daughter Thalia who died at the gates of Camp Half-Blood while saving Annabeth, Luke and Grover. This tree protects their training ground, Camp Half-Blood. They must travel to the Sea of Monsters to save it, and find the challenges that may await them. The film grossed just over $202 million at the worldwide box office.
Cast/Crew
Cast
Crew
Criticism
Rick Riordan, the author of the book series, has mentioned in numerous interviews that he has never seen the movies, to keep them from influencing the way he views the characters. During March 2016, Riordan wrote a letter asking teachers not to show the movie to students during class time. Both movies received a great amount of criticism from readers due to how much they deviated from the original stories. The second movie, for example, was criticized by fans for having merged the plots of both the second and fifth books of the series. In 2018, Rick Riordan, the author, made a post titled on his official website. In this post, he wrote about how limited his influence on the movies was. He additionally made public some of the e-mails he sent to the movie producers, in which he expressed concern over the ways they were altering his stories. "As I've said many times, once I saw the final script and saw what they were doing on the set, I realized I had to step away for my own peace of mind", Riordan commented. However, he still acknowledges that he is "eternally grateful that the movies brought so many people to the books. That is a wonderful thing movies can do for books, and all authors dream about getting that opportunity".
