Rick Riordan’s ‘Percy Jackson’ Character Changes
Published on April 18th, 2022 | Updated on April 18th, 2022 | By FanFest
The writer and producer of the show, who also wrote and produced previous installments, continues to communicate with fans through his website as the anticipated television series based on Rick Riordan’s award-winning Percy Jackson book series approaches.
Fans have flooded the author with queries regarding the actor’s appearances and if any changes will be made to his on-screen performance, following news that The Adam Project’s Walker Scobell will be playing the protagonist. Here are Riordan’s comments.
“Other questions I bet you are asking: Are we going to make Walker dye his hair black? Answer: We have had zero conversations about this. Personally, I think this is a non-issue. For me, finding the right actors has never been about hair color, eye color, skin color, or any other single physical trait, even if they were described a certain way in the books.”
In the novels, Annabeth is a platinum blonde, and Alexandra Daddario’s portrayal of her in the live action adaptations was as a brunette instead of being a blonde. Riordan stated that the actors were much too old for their parts.
“If I may invoke the Movies That Shall Not Be Watched, I know a lot of you cared deeply and were unhappy when Annabeth turned out to be a brunette rather than blonde, but for me, that was never the main issue. What mattered were that those actors, as talented and wonderful as they are, were WAY too old for the parts as I wrote them, and their age was central to the plot.”
In response to the criticism that he was including too many people of color, Paul said it’s more important for “age-appropriate” actors to embrace the characters’ personalities and bring them to life in a more realistic way.
“What I want to see are age-appropriate actors who can embody the personalities of the characters, nail their voices and their sense of humor, and make you believe: “Yes, that is Percy. That is Grover. That is Annabeth,” even if they’re not exactly how the characters were described physically in the books.”
After confirming that the Percy Jackson team is still hard at work in the writers’ room, selecting the rest of the cast, Riordan revealed that they’ll be announcing a premiere date shortly. It’s impossible to predict when the television adaptation will air on Disney Plus; nevertheless, filming is set to begin in June 2022.
