Percy Jackson and the Olympians Fansite

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]

The Lightning Thief is the year’s top grossing film of the last two months!

That’s pretty cool. Although other films like Alice In Wonderland could quickly de-throne it. Hopefully it’ll stay for a while, but we’ll just have to see.

Also, the film has been estimated to have made about $9,800,000 this weekend and was #5 in the top films this weekend. With about a 36% fall from last weekend it seems to be holding alright.

So we’ve all heard the news. Tobey Maguire is out for Spider-Man 4. And they’re doing a reboot of the entire franchise. The only question is….. Who plays Spider-Man? One popular rumor is Logan Lerman, who let slip in an interview to MTV that he was talking about playing Spider-Man.

MTV did an article on his chances, and how Percy Jackson’s results could impact them.

“Percy Jackson & The Olympians” didn’t quite wield the power of the gods when it arrived in theaters this weekend and came in second at the box office to “Valentine’s Day,” so what does that mean for its star, Logan Lerman, and rumors that he’s up for the lead role in Marc Webb’s “Spider-Man”?

As regular readers are already aware, Lerman set the ‘Net on fire recently when he mentioned in passing that he was in talks to play Peter Parker. Even though Lerman backed off that statement a bit in a subsequent interview with MTV News, we pondered exactly what might be at stake when Lerman makes his debut in “Percy Jackson” — and now it’s time to figure out whether playing a god means he’ll be playing a superhero.

Overall, “Percy Jackson” made a respectable $38.8 million over the weekend, proving Lerman can indeed carry the lead role in a film of that size. However, the opening weekend take is still distant enough from the film’s $95 million budget that a sequel isn’t a certainty — which could actually bode well for Lerman if he’s called upon to become the new Peter Parker.

As for his performance, MTV’s Kurt Loder said the film’s young leads were “fine … although Lerman and Alexandra Daddario don’t have a lot of chemistry.”

Splash Page readers, however, seemed firmly in Lerman’s corner, and raved about how he’d acted himself into the role with his “Percy Jackson” performance:

“Saw ‘Percy Jackson’ and while the script was mediocre, Lerman tried his best to give a solid performance,” wrote reader criticafterdark. “Has an onscreen charisma and likeability and I can see him as Parker. He put on a Brooklyn accent and walk for Percy and was good in the action sequences. This should give him the necessary exposure to CGI work if he does ‘Spider-Man.’”

“While watching Percy Jackson I kept picturing him as Spiderman,” wrote Mayesha. “He would be perfect!”

While Lerman’s status in the “Spider-Man” casting mix remains unconfirmed, it looks like he’s saying and doing (and earning) the right things to put him in line for the role of Peter Parker. However, only time will tell if he’s given the great power — and responsibility — of playing your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

[Source: MTV]

Hello again! I hope you all liked part one of our series on Changes From The Book: What It Could Mean For Future Movies or CFTBWICMFFM. Try to enunciate that one. I’m not even going to try. Well, here you go, part two of CFTBWICMFFM.

Part Two: Character Omissions
So we saw the film and thought, “Oh my gosh, here comes Clarisse to jack up Percy!” And what do we get? Annabeth in a Clarisse/Annabeth mixture. Then at the diner where they’re talking about the Gods being angry we thought: “Saweet, here comes Ares!!” And nothing at all. And also, when Luke gave Percy the flying shoes we thought: “NOOO! Don’t take those! Those are cursed!” And they weren’t. They didn’t have a peep from Kronos.

Well, what can all this mean? How will they swing those Character Omissions? Obviously they were on a tight budget. At least for this kind of film. I mean, the latest Harry Potter film had a budget of around $200 million. So they had to cut characters. Anyways, how can they make the cut characters back into the story in The Sea of Monsters etc? Your pals at percyjackson.org have a thought or two.

Character #1: Clarisse
In The Lightning Thief book, Clarisse bullies Percy and is the one to maim him in Capture The Flag. Instead we have Annabeth. In The Sea of Monsters, Clarisse is the one who goes on a quest to save the Golden Fleece from Polyphemus. And Percy, Grover and Annabeth help her at the end. So how can they have her do that when they didn’t have her in the first film?

Easy, they just introduce her as a daughter of Ares and all is happy. They could do the bathroom swirly scene. That was a good intro for her character in The Lightning Thief book.

Character #2: Ares
Ares was really a character made for The Lightning Thief. That was really his moment to shine. Instead they have it where Luke was working alone to steal the Lightning bolt. So they could introduce him later in the series. He doesn’t really have a story now, so they’ll probably show him in passing in one of the films.

Character #3: Luke
While he’s not omitted from the film, but he still gets killed by Percy, or at least presumed dead from the water trident. (Not in the book!) So I think what they’ll do, and it ties in with change #4 below, is that he wanted to bring down the Gods so the Demi-Gods could rule.

I think that they’ll have Kronos bring Luke back alive, and have him as his puppet to bring down Olympus.

Character #4: Kronos
This is probably the crook of the issue. While we don’t see him in the book, he’s pointed out as the puppeteer pulling the strings. He’s the guy who twisted Luke into stealing the Lightning Bolt, he was the one who wanted it to bring down the Gods. The shoes from Luke were designed to pull Percy down to Tartarus to Kronos, with the Lightning Bolt.

Now the question is: How will they introduce him as the series baddie? Well, I’ve given it some thought, and talking about Luke, I’ve already given an idea, but here’s some more:

Like I said before, he’ll probably bring Luke back alive and recruit him to help him out of Tartarus, and to bring down the Gods. He’ll start taunting Percy in his dreams, like he does in The Lightning Thief book. He’ll appear on the cruise ship in the coffin, with Luke alive and well from Kronos’ hand, recruiting people and slowly having Kronos come back alive.

Character #5: Thalia
Again, she’s not in the book, but she’s now the tree that guards the Camp from Monsters. She was with Annabeth, Luke and Grover, and sacrificed herself before the events of The Lightning Thief. What’ll probably happen is they’ll introduce her tree in The Sea of Monsters, when they explain that her tree is dying or something like that.

OR, they could introduce her as a brand new camper, fresh from fighting some monsters. That would be a little weird though, I hope they do something for her like she is in the books.

Character #6: The Oracle
Same thing in Change #1 about the prophecy, I don’t know why she didn’t show up. Maybe they’ll have her as a new addition to the camp, or have it where since Percy ditched camp right away he didn’t get a prophecy for the Lightning Thief story. Probably some explanation on Chiron’s part would do some good as well. I liked having the Oracle in the books, and I hope they’ll find a way to write her in the story.

Character #7: Mr. D (Dionysus)
Here’s a character omission I can’t figure. Probably just to save time but, he’s supposed to be over the Camp for a 100 years. He was seen, not even had any lines though, but seen nonetheless in the Olympus chamber in The Lightning Thief.

Again, like the other character omissions, they might have him as a new starter in The Sea of Monsters, just barely banished for a 100 years by Zeus to run Camp Half-Blood. That would be nice to have him in it, especially because his character begins to grow in The Battle of the Labyrinth and he helps Percy in The Last Olympian.

Anyways, I hope that all these characters are featured in The Sea of Monsters, and hopefully the studio will have a better budget this time to feature these characters. I’ll take how the movie was done because it was done well, and I’m sure they’ll do terrific with The Sea of Monsters and onward, but Mr. Titley, if you are at all by chance reading this, please feature these characters in the next film. Thank you. If not, I understand, but if you can that would be awesome!

I hope you all liked this addition of CFTBWICMFFM.

The Lightning Thief has been out around 12 days now. And what are the box office numbers??? First, you may remember the budget of $95,000,000 from an earlier read, and now…

The box office results:
U.S Box Office: $58,760,000

International Box Office: $67,647,000

Worldwide Box Office: $126,407,000

These numbers are very promising. The movie has beaten it’s budget, and it should still have around a month in the box office. So, it has not been officially greenlit, but I think there is a good chance that The Sea of Monsters will be in a theater near you soon!

[Source: BoxOfficeMojo]

Yesterday, February 19th is Ray Winstone’s birthday. You may not remember him from The Lightning Thief, but on IMDB for a while he was credited for being Ares, God of War. And since we didn’t see Ares in the film at all, he’s now not credited at all for the film.

Maybe we’ll see him in later films, or in the DVD’s deleted scenes. The third possibility is he’s not Ares at all. Until other news comes, we here at percyjackson.org would like to say Happy Birthday Mr. Winstone!

Those of you who don’t recognize him, two films you may know him from are 1)Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, playing Indiana Jones’ friend Mac, and 2)he also voiced Mr. Beaver in Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.

Brandon T Jackson talked to MTV about a song he did with artist T-Pain for the Percy Jackson film. He doesn’t know why, but they cut the song at the last second. It’s too bad, it would’ve been cool to hear it. Hopefully it’ll be on the DVD release!! There’s also a quick video of Brandon talking about it. Here you go!

Percy Jackson has a problem. The New York high school student has just discovered he’s the son of Poseidon and is accused of stealing Zeus’ lighting bolt. That bolt is one thing you don’t want to steal because its disappearance will result in a sort of Greek god-led worldwide Armageddon. Thus Percy (Logan Lerman) and his two supernatural buddies, Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) and Grover (Brandon T. Jackson), set off on a cross-country adventure to save the planet.

The journey brings them to Las Vegas, where the trio visit a casino and boogie like mad to Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.” But there are two songs you won’t hear in the movie.

“Me and T-Pain, we made a song for the film, and they took it out,” Brandon T. Jackson told MTV News. “At the last minute they cut it out. I don’t know why.”

The scene was set up to be an ensemble dance number, but the footage was left on the cutting-room floor. Jackson is holding out hope the material makes it onto the DVD.

“Trust me, it would have been the Bar Mitzvah song!” he said.

A representative for T-Pain confirmed the collaboration and clarified that they actually laid down two tracks. Jackson and T-Pain, along with Tay Dizm and Young Cash (two artists on T-Pain’s Nappy Boy label) recorded the tunes, but the scenes were ultimately cut. The singer himself declined to comment on the project.

While the T-Pain/Jackson partnership has not yet seen the light of day, Jackson did get to work with another recording artist for a viral video released just days before “Percy Jackson” arrives in theaters on Friday. In the FunnyOrDie video “Dark Moon,” Jackson and Eve present a “Twilight” parody about the untold stories of overly sensitive African-American vampires.

The “Dark Moon” sketch wasn’t the only video Jackson had in the works. He and T-Pain also had plans to shoot a music video for one of the “Percy Jackson” tunes, a video that would have played off Jackson’s character in the movie, a half-man, half-goat deity called a satyr.

“We had the idea for a video, too, where T-Pain was going to be a goat,” Jackson said. “It was gonna be great.”

[Source: MTV]

The weekends box office results are in! And the verdict? Well, first let’s recap on which films are new this weekend. Valentines Day, The Wolfman and The Lightning Thief. Let’s get on to the results from this weekend!

Valentines Day: $52.4 million (Budget $52 million)

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief: $31.1 million (Budget $95 million)

The Wolfman: 30.06 million. (Budget $85 million)

So obviously Valentines Day beat out the rest because it’s the holiday movie. It’s beaten their budget, so any money they make from here on out is profit for them. Percy Jackson did well, with $31.1 million, and it’s budget being $95 million it should make enough money because it’ll get some good word of mouth, and since nothing really comes out next week, it should do better next week.

So many fans felt that this weekend would be better for Chris Columbus and Co., but we are all a bit biased here. It’s Ok, we all just want to see more, so keep your fingers crossed and tell your friends to go see a movie with you (hint, hint).

And we’ll see about The Wolfman.

This President’s Day weekend is seeing three major releases in the box office.

First is the romantic comedy Valentines Day, which should come as no surprise since this is also Valentines Day weekend. It has a big cast including Jessica Alba, Patrick Dempsey, Ashton Kutcher, Anne Hathaway, and more. (If I name all of them, it will take forever)

Second is the horror thriller remake of The Wolfman starring Emily Blunt, Anthony Hopkins and Benicio Del Toro.

And last, but certainly NOT least, we have the all around family film Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief starring of course, relative new-comers Logan Lerman, Brandon T Jackson, Alexandra Daddario and Jake Abel. In the supporting cast we have Pierce Brosnan, Sean Bean, Kevin Mckidd and Uma Thurman.

First, which will break even with their budget, if any? Valentines Day, despite their all-star cast only cost around $52 million to make. Wolfey on the other hand, cost $85 million. And how much did it cost the Gods? $95 million is the most accurate estimate we could find. I have no idea. I can’t find the cost anywhere, so I’ll just guess at around $145 million. If someone can correct me that would be fantastic.

Obviously I think that the movie with the best chance of capture more money than it cost to make this weekend is Valentines Day. I mean, no doubt The Lightning Thief will beat a couple hundred million, this weekend Valentines Day has the best chance, because it’s a rom-com during Valentines Day weekend.

The Wolfman might make close to $85 million, but I don’t think it will break that in a 3 day weekend.

So, my predictions?

The Lightning Thief: $60 million or higher.
Valentines Day: $50 to $60 million
The Wolfman: $40 million

What do you think? Who will finish on top? Let us know in the comments below.