Percy Jackson and the Death of the Movie Series
Many children's writers would like to follow in the footsteps of J.K. Rowling, who has produced a series of best-selling books, struck a deal with a major film studio, took an active part in creating one of the highest grossing franchises in history, and then became the screenwriter of the prequels to her fantasy saga. Unfortunately, these dreams are often shattered by the harsh Hollywood reality. This is exactly what happened to Rick Riordan, the creator of the book series Percy Jackson and the Olympians.The writer published a message to fans of his work, in which he finally explained the reasons for the failure of the film adaptation of his book series. Recall that at one time the studio 20th Century Fox intended to create a large-scale franchise based on the novels about Percy Jackson, which was supposed to become a competitor, and then the successor to "Harry Potter". The management of the major even recruited Chris Columbus to work on the film series, who directed the first two films about the Boy-Who-Lived. The film "Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief" was released in February 2010. Columbus' painting received conflicting press reviews, but still managed to get to the level of self-sufficiency. The final receipts of the blockbuster amounted to $ 226 million with a budget of $ 95 million. In the director's chair of the second film in the film series, Columbus was replaced by Thor Freudenthal. The release of "Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters" took place in the summer of 2013. To the disappointment of Fox executives, the sequel lost gross to the original and again failed to impress film critics. In the spring of next year, the performer of the role of the title character of the franchise, Logan Lerman, admitted that viewers should not expect a triquel.  According to Riordan, his contract with Fox was such that he had little or no influence over the making of the films. The writer tried several times to make changes, but the bosses of 20th Century Fox did not listen to his opinion. For the first time, Rick contacted the film producers in January 2009, when he learned that the age of the characters in The Lightning Thief was going to be raised from 12 to 17 years old. The author could not understand how Fox wants to create a long-running franchise for schoolchildren, if after the first film, almost all of its main characters will be on the verge of adulthood. In addition, in his letter to the producers, Riordan rightly noted that the change in the age of the characters is unlikely to please the huge fan base of the book series. The next time the writer contacted the creators of the blockbuster in the spring of the same year, when he got his hands on a preliminary script by Craig Titley. The lyrics were so bad that Riordan did not recognize his own characters. Moreover, on the pages of the script, the matured heroes of The Lightning Thief used words such as "bitch", "ass" and "shit" in their speech. “I constantly told my young readers that Hollywood was preparing a film adaptation of the first book about the adventures of Percy, - the writer recalls. -And then this terrible script came to me. How was I supposed to look into the faces of the children whom I had recently called to the theaters? I would not allow my own children to watch this film. I felt ashamed that my name would be associated with a picture that would turn a children's fairy tale into a vulgar teenage comedy. "  At the moment, 20th Century Fox is preparing to merge with Disney. If the contract between the Fox bosses and the author of "Percy Jackson" was concluded for a long time, the rights to film the book cycle will automatically pass to the Walt Disney Empire. It is possible that in the coming years, Disney will try to reboot the franchise. Fans of Rick Riordan's creativity can only hope that this time the author of the book cycle will be appointed at least as a creative consultant for the project. The Topic of Article: Percy Jackson and the Death of the Movie Series. |
