So, Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lightning Thief wasn’t exactly the Harry Potter killer that Fox wanted it to be (but Percy Jackson vs Harry Potter could be a ridiculously cool movie). Still, they are moving forward with a sequel subtitled The Sea of Monsters – based on the second book by Rick Riordan in the series.
According to the LA Times, virtually none of the creative personnel is back, but director Chris Columbus will magically turn into a producer, Karen Rosenfelt will magically stay on as producer, and writer partners Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski will write the screenplay (using no magic at all).
Essentially, even though The Lightning Thief made $226 million worldwide, the film cost something near $100 million and made only $88 million domestically. The numbers weren’t clear indicators that the studio wanted to take on a sequel. Something has changed their mind, though. This might shoot as early as this Summer, but there’s no word on what part of the cast will return. It’s possible that this final decision was partially hinging on whether Logan Lerman got the Spider-Man gig, and now that he’s free for the Summer, he can come out and throw lightning bolts at monsters in the sea. That’s speculation, but if you’ve read this far, you’ll realize that the brunt of this story is “Average Young Adult Adventure Gets Seemingly Unwarranted Sequel,” and that doesn’t fly well on its own.
