Franchise Killers: Percy Jackson Sea of Monsters

Judging on who you ask, the Percy Jackson movies of the early 2010s were either some of the worst adaptations of all time or classic films that made childhood. No matter what camp you’re in you have to admit that this film franchise was such a waste of potential. It ended when there were still more books to adapt and more stories to be told. Although the franchise has got a second life with the Disney+ series, that still leaves the remnants of the forgotten film attempt.

In this video I examine the last film in the series, Sea of Monsters, to understand how it killed such a promising franchise, and where it all went wrong.

(re-upload because I made some mistakes in the last draft)

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Creative Commons — Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported — CC BY-ND 3.0
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[cradiculous]

I thought this was the worst YA novel adaption for a long time, but Artemis Fowl made this look like Citizen Kane by comparison.

[dmen]

Yeah, those emails from Riordan to the studio were an amazing read one night. He just bashes the script in every way possible. And there was more he didn't post where he nitpicked, like, every line of dialogue. They reeeeally shot themselves in the foot by not including the author in the pre-production process.

[lucasgehres]

I'll just watch it again and pretend I didn't notice

[EdgedShadow]

I always assumed they knew there would be no third movie so they killed Kronos off to finish the story.

[Lando]

Another great critique on the why something didn’t work/take off. Three animated titles for consideration for future videos: Beowolf, Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within, and The Adventures of Tin Tin. Three different animation styles, established directors, all failed to capture audiences as intended.

[tumbokwaboffa]

Watching you talk about failed films has made me fall in love with your channel

[Skiman]

This reminded me that the Eragon movie exists. Pain.

[leedouglass]

I think people involved in making movies can request that their names be left off of the credits, so the screenwriters *might* have seen that this was going to be a train wreck and asked to be taken off of it 😬

[OpticalSorcerer]

A big issue for me is that by now, Harry Potter had been released, where the kids started off at 11 and grew throughout the franchise. The PJ films were in such a rush and desperation to get the YA market that they pretty much used the source material as a frame.

[KeeganMcKinney]

I honestly liked the first film but I think that the TV series is a massive success/improvement; I love what they're doing with that show!

[princessstrawberry]

I saw this movie in theaters, and only because a friend asked me to go see it with her. I’ve never read any of the books, didn’t see the first movie. We had arrived that evening in Anaheim to visit Disneyland the following day and throughout the week. Since we didn’t have plans for the rest of the day, she asked if I’d see it with her at the AMC in Downtown Disney. I had absolutely no idea what was going on this movie. By the time the credits rolled, I overheard that this movie crammed ideas from at least two (or more) books, which probably explained in part its messiness. The only part I remember was funny, was when Percy started singing “It’s a Small World”, and really only because of where I was watching the movie.

[LeonBes]

I watched Sea of Monsters on cable tv one day and, at the time, it completely killed off any curiosity I had about the books. That's by far the biggest crime these book based failed franchises commit, killing off interest in the actually well written source material.

[ToaAxiomMan]

having Kronos not be established in the first movie and then all of a sudden be mentioned in the second movie as well showing up way too early is a mistake and this feels like having Sauron not be mentioned in Fellowship of the Ring then right of the blue shows up in the Two Towers then appears in person to fight the Fellowship

[AdmiralBonetoPick]

I've never read the Percy Jackson books, but I enjoyed the two movies. You don't need the same villain in every movie (James Bond doesn't have that). In contrast, I recently watched all 8 Harry Potter movies (haven't read the books): Voldemort seemed to show up briefly and be quickly defeated in each initial movie, but it wasn't until the seventh movie that I really got a sense of what the stakes were: i.e. what Voldemort actually wanted, and why it would be a problem for everyone else if he won.

[ryanb]

Just found your channel and have really been enjoying the content 👍

[jpgr]

The entire 8th grade went to watch the first one in theaters when it came out. As a little movie fan back then, I felt the movie was just ok. I remember the girls being excited to watch it bc of Logan so there's that.

[iamawesome]

Imagine what would happen if Harry Potter was made where the kids were 16 or 15 in the first movie where J.K didn’t get her dream come true and everyone not liking the films and Percy Jackson got the opposite.

[LordRevan-viop]

You should consider doing a video on mortal engines. It’s interesting because they wanted it to be the next LOTR and got Peter Jackson involved. But the film completely went against the books.

[tracark]

While the show was marketed to be an "accurate" adaptation by Riordan himself, the show does a lot of the things the movie did but with a different code of paint. The show changed a lot of the story arcs (for the worse) and out a crap ton of content. In my opinion, I don't think Percy Jackson can be done right in a live-action setting; an animated show would work much better.

[QA]

It's amazing how much they got wrong about the source material. It's nowhere near as bad as The Last Airbender, but still very insulting.