Telling good stories about tweens and teens is not nearly as easy as the Disney Channel originals of the ‘90s and 2000s made it look. Beloved as the House of Mouse might have been in our youth, their track record has been dismally shaky of late. That’s what makes something as successful as Percy Jackson and the Olympians, an adaptation of Rick Riordan’s five-book phenomenon, feel so special. Percy Jackson seemed unadaptable before the advent of the series, but with a combination of good casting, good writing, and decent visual effects, it’s rightly earned its place as “Disney’s next big thing.”
Good as it is to see Disney reclaiming its status as the provider of children’s media, the nature of streaming creates an insular bubble around shows that should feel like phenomena. Percy Jackson is pretty popular despite only streaming on Disney+, but it could be more so. Enter Netflix, the streamer that’s everybody’s competition and also, occasionally, their savior. Disney just struck a lucrative licensing deal with its big rival, leasing its punchiest titles to Netflix for limited promotional windows. Among shows like Felicity, This Is Us, and a handful of recent Disney-Pixar releases, Percy Jackson and the Olympians will also cross over — but only for a limited time.
