We’ve all seen movies that make us go, “Well, that was a colossal waste of two hours of my life.” A couple of the movies that immediately spring to my mind are the two Percy Jackson movies, which are very, very, very loosely based off of Rick Riordan’s best-selling series. Ugh, I’m cringing just thinking about it.
Thankfully, after years of random trending moments on Twitter, fan castings, and lots of petitions to Rick himself, the fandom’s pleas reached an exec somewhere at Disney+. The announcement of the new Disney+ adaptation of the series was met with equal amounts of eager anticipation and cautious optimism.
With the release of The Tower of Nero a couple weeks back—the fifth and final book of the Trials of Apollo series, which officially concludes the Percy Jackson universe—I figured this week would be the perfect time to dive into predictions and hopes for the upcoming Disney+ adaptation.
Age appropriate casting
This is by far the most common wish I’ve seen. We appreciated Logan Lerman as Percy Jackson, but he was 17 in the first movie, while Percy barely turns 16 in the last book of the series. I’ve seen many point to Harry Potter as an example of how successful this tactic can be, especially in stories that focus on the characters growing year by year. Since Disney is geared toward younger audiences, I feel like this one is pretty likely to happen.
More accurate character representations (and more representation in general!)
Probably the best example I can come up with between the books and movies is that Annabeth should have been blonde from the beginning. I mean, her blonde hair is mentioned practically every other page throughout the series! Though, I will give the movies credit for their casting of Brandon T. Jackson as Grover, because he killed that role, even if he didn’t fit Grover’s physical description from the books. Rick Riordan included tons of representation in his later books, but it would be incredible if Disney would get the ball rolling from the start!
Following the basic plot of the books
I mean, I feel like this is a pretty standard request of all book-to-TV adaptations, though it’s rare that readers are ever satisfied with how things turn out. However, since Rick Riordan himself is heavily involved in all aspects of the show, I’m guessing this will be a pretty easy request to follow.
Those are the three main points I’ve seen people bring up regarding the new adaptation. Of course, nothing is going to be perfect, because there’s no way to satisfy each and every person who is excited for this series. But I take great comfort in the fact that, at the very least, it’ll be better than the 20th century Fox movies.