Rick Riordan didn’t want “anything to do” with Hollywood after Percy Jackson movies

It’s no secret that fans aren’t the only ones who were disappointed by 20th Century Fox’s Percy Jackson movies. Author Rick Riordan has been more than vocal about his disdain for the failed films, which adapt his story about a young boy who finds out that he is the son of the Greek god Poseidon.

Back in 2020, Riordan did not hold back when he blasted 20th Century for putting his life’s work “through a meat grinder” and completely ignoring his pleas not to take the many creative liberties they did with his source material, telling one fan on Twitter:

"Well, to you guys, it’s a couple hours’ entertainment. To me, it’s my life’s work going through a meat grinder when I pleaded with them not to do it."

The scripts for the two Percy Jackson films — released in 2010 and 2013 — were so bad that Riordan never even bothered watching the movies and has no intention of ever doing so. Not only has Riordan never been able to bring himself to watch the movies, but the experience was so bad that Riordan actually turned his back on Hollywood entirely.

Rick Riordan walked away from Hollywood after Percy Jackson movies flopped

“After the movie experience, I basically wrote off Hollywood for a long, long time,” Riordan said in a new interview with Variety. “I really didn’t want to have anything to do with the film industry. There were many years of me saying, ‘I don’t want to engage. I don’t want to think about other adaptations. I’m done.’”

Given how many creative liberties 20th Century decided to take with its two films, no one can fault Riordan for walking away from the industry. After all, when you pour your heart into a franchise in the way that Riordan did with his Percy Jackson book series, it can be quite taxing to see your life’s work torn to shreds by a studio simply looking to turn a profit no matter the cost.

Ironically, it was the fear of history repeating itself that brought Riordan back to the table ahead of the new Percy Jackson show on Disney+. He decided if another adaptation were to happen, he needed to be a part of it:

"When it started to become clear that something was going to happen with me or without me, I had a long talk with Becky, my wife. We said, “Well, if something’s going to happen, it’s probably best to give it one more shot.”"

Rick Riordan fought for the next Percy Jackson adaptation to be a TV show, not a movie

After returning to the fold and accepting the fact that Hollywood was going to adapt the Percy Jackson franchise again, one thing was clear to Riordan: the franchise needed to move to the small screen.

"My feeling was always that television was the better format for Percy, because it allows us a larger canvas to tell more of the story. And to be more faithful to the source material, which is what the fans of the books really would love to see."

Fortunately, the good people over at the Walt Disney Studios agreed, and after “many meetings with many different executives and many different branches of the Disney conglomerate,” the House of Mouse signed off on a television adaptation with the Riordans on board as executive producers.

Now the show is only weeks away from premiering on Disney+, with the hope being that this new adaptation will capture the magic of the series in a way the movies were unable to. And it seems Disney is fully invested in the franchise “We want them all,” said executive Karey Burke, referring to all 11 books in Riordan’s Percy Jackson universe, not just the original five. “In spite of the movie experience that he had before, he’s an expansive thinker about his work. He doesn’t have a rigid interpretation of it. The other series that he’s created that live in this world are all part of our universe that we can adapt.”

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h/t The A.V. Club