Creators of ‘Percy Jackson,’ ‘Avatar’ and More Series Explain Why Adapting YA Books Is Uniquely Challenging: ‘The Bar is Different’
variety.comWhitney Friedlander Adapting or modernizing a beloved property can be a thrilling experience, a way to expand a world or characters while also maybe surprising and delighting audiences with a plot twist or two.
That is, unless the original project is geared toward young adults who grew up with (or who are still reading or watching) the first iteration, and are so devoted to that version that they believe everything that happens there to be canon. “When you are adapting a children’s book, I do think that the bar is different,” says Rick Riordan, who with Jonathan E.
Steinberg, adapted his fantasy book series “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” for Disney+. “Children, especially young readers, love to embrace the story and see themselves in it … [As a creator] it’s wonderful to see, and it’s a great problem to have.
But they do expect a level of authenticity. They want to see the story brought to life, not changed.” The plot of the first season of “Olympians,” which Disney+ is submitting as a contender for the Children’s & Family Emmys, is a more detailed version of what happens in Riordan’s first book of the series.
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