Percy Jackson Franchise
Middle school obsessions. Everyone has had them and most people regret them. The obsessions have to do with something that is pop culture. You could most likely find a t shirt representing whatever it was at Hot Topic in the mall. It could range from bands like My Chemical Romance to tv shows likes Doctor Who. Mine was all about the Percy Jackson book series.
Percy Jackson is a ten book, two series long story following a 13 year old boy with adhd and greek god of a father. I mean a legit greek god. His father is Poseidon. He goes off to a camp called Camp Half-blood that’s filled with other kids like him. Demigods. Then eventually, in the midst of many books, he fights in two wars and saves the world twice all while growing up and going through puberty.
You can see why it appeals to middle schoolers. All I wanted to do while I was in middle school was save the world or be hero. While bored in class, I would sometimes dream of saving the day with my super powers or my epic ninja skills. Percy Jackson, though a fictional character, was living our dreams. In the books, nobody liked him. He got teased and bullied. He only had one friend. It was relatable to us preteens. We just wanted to stand out and be different and cool. We really wanted to be a hero.
A side effect from being absolutely obsessed with this book series was that you would learn a ton about greek mythology. I bet if you walked up to any Percy Jackson kid and asked them about the story of Medusa or the legends of the Titans we could spout it all out to you then and there. Rick Riordan made all the myths and legends he put into the books true to what they were back in ancient times. I do not think there was any better way for kids to learn greek mythology. The books make it interesting.
Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief was first published by the author,Rick Riordan, in the year 2005. Riordan has said in a few interviews that the inspiration for the books was to give his son, who was diagnosed with adhd, hope and a sense belonging in a world that was different than he is. Then the books blew up and that hope spread to millions of kids everywhere. It even won a Hampshire Book Award for Best Book for Young Adults.
I hopped on the already very full bandwagon when I was in the fifth grade back in 2012. I read every single book, then I reread them over and over again. Fans have made fanart, wrote fanfiction, and even cosplayed and posted videos of them acting out scenes from the books. People had t-shirts and swords just to pretend they were in the books. You could compare the following for Percy Jackson to the following of Harry Potter. Maybe not as creepy intense, but we are a loyal fanbase. All we needed were some actually good movies to have been made about them and we could be as big as them. Maybe even bigger, Don’t get me wrong, there were movies but they were terrible and a disservice to the franchise. You could even call them a mistake.
There were two movies made based off the books, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief and Percy Jackson: The Sea of Monsters. They starred Logan Lerman and Alexandrio Daddario. If you ever want to mad any super fan mad just tell them that the movies are good. They will start to list off everything wrong with them starting from the actors ages to small details the writers got wrong. Rick Riordan himself has said he hated the movies. He has sent out tweets instilling his distaste for the two films.
Even though the movies were awful, all the fans are still hungry for more. The producers at Disney Plus noticed that and have decided to make a Percy Jackson tv show. A lot of fans are hopeful that this time they will follow the books and pick actors the actual age the characters are in the story. Rick Riordan has been brought onto the show to help oversee some of the choices being made. If the writers and directors do this show right, and there is a high chance they will, Disney will be making a lot of money off the show. All it took was one trailer and one tweet and the show went viral on tik tok, twitter, and everywhere else.
