Percy Jackson and The Olympians are all set to get a Disney+ series, but the TV show needs to update Rich Riodarn’s creation to deliver more diversity.
Finally, Disney + is going to adapt to Percy Jackson and The Olympians, Rich Riodarn’s creation has to see some changes to attract the modern Audience. The new take on the famous YA books is a great opportunity to address something that the original adaptation – which was intended to kick off a series to rival Harry Potter’s success – fell foul of.
The Percy Jackson series of books deliver the story about the children of Greek God encountering the evil titans on heroic quests but the problem with the tales is that they are very much America-centric. Originally the creation of Riodarn focuses on the importance of western civilization and side away from the mythologies of other cultures. The movie from the 20th Fox was a field to fit the problem and incorporate the cultural elements from different parts of the world, but there is a chance for adaptation to solve this problem. Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief and Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters both failed in many aspects, and ended up receiving a lot of negative criticism.
Now almost a decade later, it is again in talks with Disney to re-adapt the book for a Disney+ series, finally, this will give writers a chance to fix the problem with the original movies. Not only would this adaptation be a huge improvement from those movies, but it could also solve the cultural problems of the original book series too.
Percy Jackson Should Focus On Different Cultural Gods
In Percy Jackson and The Olympian’s original books, the Greek Gods are living a life of normal people, working in the United States. The book keeps the United States specifically New York because they are the center of western civilizations. While this is a convenient way to explain why Greek gods are in a new country, this explanation can read as very self-centered to a non-American audience. There is a very easy and simple way to fix this problem: the adaptation should feature different characters from different cultures. Instead of Camp Half-Blood being the only demigod camp, the TV series could explore demigod camps all around the world and take the main characters on international adventures.
