When a movie isn't well received by critics and doesn't perform well at the box office, it usually kind of kills any potential for a sequel. Take, for example, the two Jerry Bruckheimer movies from last year: Prince of Persia and The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Though few producers out there love to make sequels more than Mr. Bruckheimer, neither film was accepted by audiences or critics and there hasn't been a peep about a follow-up. That's what makes this news so perplexing.
The LA Times is reporting that Fox 2000 is in the midst of setting up a sequel to Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Based on the young adult series of novels by Rick Riordan, the first movie was a disappointment in all fields, bringing in only $88 million domestically on a $95 million budget and suffering under comparisons to the Harry Potter movies. Just like the second book in the series, the sequel would be titled Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Sea of Monsters, and Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski have been hired to write the script. According to an unnamed source, Logan Lerman, who starred as the titular Jackson, will be returning, but director Chris Columbus and producer Karen Rosenfelt will not. Should things work according to plan the sequel could shoot as early as this summer.
Just to make sure I have this straight, the movie world is already completely saturated with sequels to successful movies and now we're going to start making sequels to the unsuccessful ones? I swear to god, I could cover this industry for the next fifty years and I doubt that I will ever understand it.
