Percy Jackson and the Olympians Fansite

We’ve got some top secret news!….again, not really secret, but we’ve got details on the special features on Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief [Blu-ray]

Most of these are Blu-ray exclusive, and the cool thing is that the Blu-ray version comes with the Blu-Ray disc movie and special features, a DVD of the film and a code to get a digital copy on Windows Media Player OR iTunes for free!

10 Extended and Deleted Scenes
The Museum – Grover Photographs Aphrodite
BD Exclusive: The Infirmary – Percy Meets Annabeth
BD Exclusive: Aphrodite’s Daughters – Grover Jumps Into Spa
BD Exclusive: Int. Bus – Percy Looks At The Map
BD Exclusive: Auntie Em’s – Medusa Chases Percy
Int. Pickup Truck – Grover Talks About Zeus’ daughter
Lotus Land Casino – Grover Dances
BD Exclusive: Lotus Land Casino – Percy Meets 50’s Guy
Lotus Land Casino – Percy, Annabeth and Grover Fight The Guards
Hades’ Mansion – Hades Talks To Percy
BD Exclusive: Secrets of the Gods
Discover Your Powers Quiz
The Book Comes To Life
BD Exclusive: Inside Camp Half-Blood
BD Exclusive: On Set With Brandon T. Jackson
BD Exclusive: Meet The Demigods

What do you think? I think it’s pretty cool. It comes out on June 22nd!

[Source: TheHDRoom]

So we found the name of the next book on amazon.com, and it is called……… drumroll please………………………..

First, it’s set to be released October 12th, the same day as The Lightning Thief graphic novel. It’s page length is 384 pages. Please note that that is set to change, as too is the title until it’s confirmed by Rick Riordan. Anyways, without further ado……….

The Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Hero

What do you think? It’s weird that “Hero” is in both the book and series title. Plus, what happened to the “Name and the Olympians” naming convention? Anyways, it’s pretty cool, but again all of this is circumstantial until Mr. Riordan confirms this. Anyways, you can pre-order The Lost Hero at amazon.com at this link for just about $12!

Ok, you have waited patiently long enough – GO CHECK IT OUT ON AMAZON!

Hitfix.com has recently posted an article on the ongoing Spider-Man reboot casting and claims that Logan Lerman is frontrunner for said film. This is good news seeing as info on the Spider-Man casting has been non-existent for a while.

The article says that he’s been locked in by the casting department, but has not entered negotiations yet. Anyways, we’ll let you know where this leads and if Logan Lerman will really don the red and blue suit as Spider Man.

The search for the new “Spider-Man” appears to be over.

HitFix has exclusively learned that Logan Lerman is first choice for Sony Pictures and the clear frontrunner to replace Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker in the reboot of the blockbuster franchise. A source close to the production tells HitFix Lerman is “almost 100% locked” but not in contract negotiations for the role yet.

Marc Webb (”500 Days of Summer”) is directing the new untitled “Spider-Man” which is being written by James Vanderbilt (”Zodiac,” “The Losers”) and is meant to be a more teen-friendly incarnation, taking Peter Parker back to his early days of balancing girl trouble, homework, and crimefighting. The new film is expected to begin production later this year for a July 3, 2012 release.

Maguire, co-star Kristen Dunst and director Sam Raimi were expected to continue their version of the wall-crawler’s adventures until Raimi bowed out after creative differences with the studio earlier this
year. At that time, Sony Pictures decided to re-cast the film and move in a new direction, and had already been developing a reboot script as a contingency plan.

Lerman beats out rumored contenders Anton Yelchin, Jesse Eisenberg, Patrick Fugit and Johnny Simmons.

The 18-year-old Los Angeles native is best known for his role as Percy in February’s hit “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.” His other credits include “Gamer,” “My One and Only,” “Bill,” “3:10 to Yuma,” “The Number 23″ and the TV series “Jack & Bobby” where he played Bobby. Lerman got his start in two Mel Gibson films “What Women Want” and “The Patriot” at the young age of 8.

The attention focused on the casting of this role is not surprising when one considers that, historically, one of the reasons “Gone With the Wind was a phenomenon when it was released in 1939 was the deep investment that the audience already had in the characters thanks to the popularity of the book. Mega-producer David O. Selznick made canny use of the the casting process to hype the film, and the search to find the right Scarlett O’Hara and the right Rhett Butler was international news for a full year.

These days, it seems that the search for each new superhero has become a major sport for outlets that cover entertainment news, no doubt because modern audiences have a major investment in seeing these characters done right. When Sony Pictures decided to reboot “Spider-Man,” speculation began immediately, and Lerman was one of the early names bandied about. At the time, those conversations were premature, but it appears that the process has brought Sony back around to the young actor, and now he is poised to wear the familiar red-and-blue costume after all.

[Source: HitFix]

Mr. Riordan updated his blog recently and talked about Camp Half-Blood #2, and The Kane Chronicles. He has finally narrowed down the release date for Camp Half-Blood #2 book one to October, and he is about to start The Kane Chronicles book 2.

The first book in the Camp Half-Blood series is with my editor now. And speaking of that, this is her last day at Disney. Jennifer Besser has been with me since The Lightning Thief. As I’ve mentioned before, she was instrumental in the success of the series, so it’s hard to see her go, but she’s going on to great things. She’ll be the v.p. and publisher at Penguin Putnam now, and I wish her all the best! I know she’s only begun to make her mark on the publishing industry. Good luck, Jen. Thanks for everything, and you’ll always have a guest room at Camp Half-Blood anytime you want to visit.

The wonderful Stephanie Lurie will now be editing the Kane Chronicles and the new Camp Half-Blood series at Disney, so I know the books are in good hands. I still remember when Stephanie took over as editorial director at Disney. My friend Neal Shusterman pulled me aside at the Bologna Book Fair and told me how lucky we were to be getting Stephanie. Neal was definitely right!

As for the Kane Chronicles, I’m getting really excited about the release. The first finished copies of The Red Pyramid arrived today, and they look great. The book will be in stores May 4. The launch event will be at Symphony Space in New York, and I understand tickets are almost sold out already, so if you’d like to join us, you might want to book soon. More events will be announced shortly. I’ll be on the road for two weeks, and can’t wait to get out and meet some of you guys. I also just found out that my friends at Little Shop of Stories in Decatur, GA are doing a ‘Camp Kane’ this summer based on my Egyptian series and their own wildly popular Camp Half-Blood. Guess what? Camp Kane is already sold out! Thanks to Diane and the gang at Little Shop for all their incredible support. I hope the kids have a great time going Egyptian this summer.

It looks like the new Camp Half-Blood series will launch in October, but when I have more details I’ll let you know. As you can imagine, I was nervous about how this new book would work after the success of Percy Jackson. Would people accept a return to that world in a slightly different form? To my surprise, everyone who’s read it so far, from my agent to my editors to my own kids, has said they like it even better. Wow – fingers crossed you agree.

Now, I’ve moved on to the second Kane Chronicles book. I’m just in the planning stages, but I have a good sense where the series is going and Carter and Sadie are in for quite a ride!

In other news, I just got my first peek at the fully colored pages for the Lightning Thief graphic novel. It’s looking very sharp. As soon as I have a definite release date for that, I’ll let you know. The Percy Jackson series continues to steam along on the New York Times bestseller list, and I have you guys to thank for that! I appreciate you reading and recommending the books to your friends. I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback about the Percy Jackson Ultimate Guide, too. So glad you’ve enjoyed it.

[Source: Rick Riordan Blog]

The Lightning Thief movie has hit the $200 million mark at last! According to Boxofficemojo it has made about $202 million which is awesome because many have said that the $200 million mark was the deciding factor whether or not the series continued on film.

So we should hopefully be hearing news for The Sea of Monsters in development soon!!

Today, March 16th, is Alexandra Daddario’s 24th birthday! We’d just like to say Happy Birthday Alexandra!

You are special to all of us. Hope you have a great day.

Rick Riordan has updated his blog Myth and Mystery with some exciting news! The manuscript for the new Camp Half Blood series is at last complete! He read it to his kids, who are the first to experience the new books, and they said it was terrific.

I’m pretty excited! He again says that the book will be published this fall! Woo hoo! Anyways, you can read his blog post below.

We had a nice week in the Riordan house as I finished up the manuscript for the first book in the new Camp Half-Blood series. It’s always quite a relief to wrap up a manuscript, even though I know there are months of revisions ahead of me before it’s ready for publication in the fall. Still, the majority of the work is done.

The story is in place. And best of all, I got to read it to my kids! Haley and Patrick are always my first editors. Reading it aloud to them, I can quickly tell whether it’s going to work for kids, which parts need tightening, which parts might be confusing. Becky was reading the manuscript at the same time, and we all finished it yesterday.

Their verdict? Becky gave it thumbs up. Her first comment, “Wow, the fans are going to be so pleased.” I can’t tell you why, of course, but she had good reasons for saying that. When I put Patrick to bed last night, he said, “Thanks for writing a masterpiece, Dad.” LOL. You’ve got to cherish feedback like that.

Haley told me jokingly that I had gone from being his third favorite author to his second favorite. Woohoo! I’m not sure if I displaced Derek Landy or Suzanne Collins, but either way it’s quite a compliment. Both boys wanted to know when the next volume of the series will be ready. They’ve decided this book is one of my best, and I hope they’re right — and of course, I hope you agree when it’s published in the fall. Now it goes off to my editor.

No hints on the plot — sorry! Title? Nope, can’t tell you that yet either. But I can promise you many surprises, and you will get to catch up with old friends as well as meet a cool new cast of demigods. As soon as I can say more — probably late in the spring — I will post on my website.

In the meantime, I’m gearing up for The Red Pyramid, which comes out in May. I can’t wait to share that story with you, too! I’ll be in New York for an event at the Met next weekend — which I understand is sold out. If you can’t attend, I’ll blog about it afterwards and let you know how it went.

Have a good week, everyone!

[Source: Rick Riordan]

Today, March 7th, is Brandon T Jackson’s 26th birthday! I’d like to say on behalf of all of your fans everywhere, but mostly here at percyjackson.org, Happy Birthday Brandon!

We look forward to many more great scenes and lines from future PJO series films (fingers crossed).

I hope you have a great day!

As you might remember, for Presidents/Valentines Day weekend, The Lightning Thief was one of three major releases. Valentines Day and The Wolfman also debuted and as far as consistency, PJO is the best of the bunch.

While Valentines Day did well that weekend, it has since dropped. And The Wolfman completely bombed. PJO, while not performing as some hoped the first weekend, it has since been earning good amounts for Fox.

If it keeps strong, I have high hopes for The Sea of Monsters.

Two weeks out, the fate of the three big movies that opened over Presidents’ Day weekend has changed dramatically.

20th Century Fox’s “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” has demonstrated solid staying power and now appears likely, on a worldwide basis, to closely match the final gross of the romantic comedy “Valentine’s Day,” which dominated the box office in its debut.

Universal Pictures’ “The Wolfman,” meanwhile, has quickly faded and has gone from a so-so opening to bust. After declining 69% on its second weekend and 58% this weekend, the monster movie remake has brought in only $57.2 million domestically. Its foreign total of $63.3 million is also the lowest of the three pictures.

“Percy Jackson” has had the smallest drop for two straight weekends and is now at $71.2 million domestically and has the biggest international gross, $95.4 million.

It will likely end up with a little more than $200 million worldwide, close to the final total of “Valentine’s Day,” which has fallen quickly after a huge $56.3 domestic opening and is now at $100.4 million. Overseas it has brought in $87.4 million.

Warner Bros.’ ensemble romantic comedy is still the stronger performer, however, since it cost $52 million to make, compared to $95 million for the special effects- laden “Percy Jackson.”

[Source: LaTimes]

Mr. Riordan posted on his blog that he is nearly done with the 2nd draft of the new Camp Half Blood Series’ 1st addition! That’s great news! I don’t know about you, but I’ve been in CHB (Camp Half-Blood) withdrawal.

Nearly a year since the last one came out….. and estimating 8 months to go. All well, I’m just excited that he’s continuing with the more Camp Half Blood books. Too bad that the characters we know won’t really be in the new series.

Tired author alert! I’ve been absolutely absorbed in the world of Camp Half-Blood for the past two weeks. I am working long days and long nights to finish revisions on the first volume in the new series, which I hope to have wrapped up and to my editor in about three weeks.

The novel (fingers crossed) should be published this fall, because remember the editing process takes a long time. Exact information about the pub date will be made available when we’ve nailed it down. The name of the series, and the title for the first book, will not be announced for a while.

I’m pretty sure I know, but I always finish the manuscript before naming it. Well . . . almost always. I already know the title for the second Camp Half-Blood book, strangely enough, which is only in the planning stages. I wish I could tell you why that is, but I can’t yet.

So what can I tell you? Not much yet! I can only say that I’m having a blast with the series, blending the new characters with the old, and injecting a totally new spin into the world of Percy Jackson & the Olympians. I’m smiling a lot, even though I’m tired, and my sons are getting anxious to read the manuscript. As always, they are my first test group!

As I’ve mentioned, the first book in the Kane Chronicles, The Red Pyramid, will be released May 4, and the publisher has some exciting plans in the works. I will tell you more when I can, but I hope you enjoy my modern take on the Ancient Egyptian gods. Carter and Sadie quickly won my heart. They’re just such fun main characters to write about.

[Source: Rick Riordan Blog]