#19: Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013) — Planned Third Film
The Percy Jackson novels offered 20th Century Fox a ready-made young-adult fantasy series capable of supporting numerous movies. After Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief performed respectably in 2010, Logan Lerman returned for Sea of Monsters, loosely adapting Rick Riordan’s second novel. The movie expanded the mythology, introduced additional characters, and ended with a major development involving Thalia that directly sets up material from The Titan’s Curse, the third book. A third film therefore had an obvious narrative foundation. Sea of Monsters, however, earned only around $200 million worldwide and received mixed-to-negative reviews, while fans of the books continued criticizing substantial changes to characters, ages, mythology, and plot. Fox chose not to continue with The Titan’s Curse, meaning the final tease became another unresolved franchise ending. Riordan himself had long expressed dissatisfaction with the movie adaptations. The property eventually received a complete restart as Disney+’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians, with Riordan much more directly involved.
