Trident Trio

Author Rick Riordan on how he ensured the Percy Jackson series got his stories right

- TARA BENNETT

DISAPPOINTED FANS DON'T often get a second chance when a beloved book gets botched in a Hollywood adaptation. Take the legions of readers who adore author Rick Riordan's YA fantasy series Percy Jackson & The Olympians, who are still smarting from director Chris Columbus's 2010 retooling of The Lightning Thief into an aged-up movie that barely resembled the source work.

Movie Percy only survived two instalments, while Riordan went on to sell more than 180 million copies of his six-book saga about a boy who learns that he's the son of Poseidon.

But that kind of success makes studios like Disney incentivised to try and get it right, which is why Percy Jackson And The Olympians has been reimagined into a Disney+ series with Riordan and his wife, Rebecca, executive-producing. The first two episodes immediately presented fans with a far more book-faithful story, along with age-appropriate portrayals of Percy (Walker Scobell) and his magical besties, Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries) and the satyr Grover (Aryan Simhadri).

Fixing what wasn't broken is a big part of why Riordan signed up to be a creative on the series, working alongside showrunners Jonathan E Steinberg and Dan Shotz.