With the Harry Potter film franchise wrapping up in two years studios are still trying to find the next big money maker that will get the Harry Potter fans and new folks hooked. Despite trying in the past with mixed results (see Eragon and Chronicles of Narnia as examples) Fox is giving it a go with a film adaptation of the popular book Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief.
Now the comparisons between Percy Jackson and Harry Potter is quite eerie. The two are of course based on popular novels which happen to tell the tales of young men who learn of their magical/Olympian background and are soon thrust into a world that is foreign yet welcoming to them at the same time. Besides that the other thing the two projects share is the same director as Chris Columbus, the man responsible for the first two Harry Potter films, is the director for Percy Jackson. I guess after leaving HP Chris wanted to jump back into the fantasy genre and I’m sure Fox dumped a ton of money on Chris hoping he would capture the same magic he had while making the first two Harry Potter films.
I’m not familiar at all with Percy Jackson and it does seem a bit hokey in the trailer below but it does have a decent cast that should please some geeks and movie fans. A movie that has Sean Bean as Zeus, Uma Thurman as Medusa, Rosario Dawson as Persephone, Steve Coogan as Hades and Pierce Brosnan as a Centaur is going to get my ass in a movie seat. The movie obviously won’t be anywhere near how awesome God of War is with its retelling and take on Greek mythology but it should at least be interesting in a corny and entertaining special effects aspect.
Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief is set for a February 12th, 2010 release.
Yeah io saw this trailer on the Wolverine Blu-ray. I dont think anything will ever come close to the box office success of Harry Potter. The only thing currently that comes in at a distant second is the Narnia franchise. You look at the other book/movie franchises they tried to get off the ground and failed includes The Golden Compass, The Dark is Rising, Eragon and The Spiderwick Chronicles. And yes I refuse to acknowledge the Twilight crap.