Trouble-prone Percy Jackson is having problems in high school - but that's the least of his challenges. It's the Twenty first century, but the gods of Mount Olympus seem to have walked out of the pages of Percy's Greek mythology texts and into his life.  Percy has learned that his real father is Poseidon, god of the sea, which means Percy is a demigod - half human, half god.  At the same time, Zeus, the king of all gods, has accused Percy of stealing Zeus' lightning bolt...the original weapon of mass destruction.
Now, Percy must prepare for the adventure of a lifetime, and the stakes couldn't be higher.
With ominous storm clouds brewing over the planet and his own life now in peril, Percy travels to a special enclave called Camp Half Blood, where he trains to harness his newly discovered powers and prevent a devastating war among the gods. There, Percy meets two fellow demigods - the warrior Annabeth, who is searching for her mother, the goddess Athena; and his childhood friend and protector, Grover, who is actually a brave but untested Satyr. 
Grover and Annabeth then join Percy on an incredible transcontinental odyssey that takes them six hundred stories above New York City (the portal to Mount Olympus) and to the iconic Hollywood sign, under which burn the fires of the Underworld.  At journey's end rests the fate of the world - and the life of Percy's mother Sally, whom Percy must rescue from the depths of Hell itself.
Percy Jackson:  Half human.  Half god.  All hero!

The big screen adaptation of author Rick Riordan's #1 New York Times bestseller, The Lightning Thief: Percy Jackson & the Olympians is the first of five books in Riordan's series (the final installment, The Last Olympian, hit bookshelves in May 2009), and was published in 2005 and won several awards, including a New York Times Notable Book honor of that year; Best Book of 2005 from both the School Library Journal and Child Magazine; and a 2006 Bluebonnet Award nomination from the Texas Library Association.
Chris Columbus ("Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," "Home Alone") directed the epic fantasy-adventure.

The beginning
Author Rick Riordan, who taught Greek Mythology for a many years in middle school in California and Texas, came up with the idea for the first Percy Jackson book (which subsequently led to four additional novels and a huge fan base numbering in the millions) after reading the sagas of the ancient Greek heroes as bedtime stories to his son, Haley.
"When I ran out of myths, my son became disappointed," the author relates on his website.  "He asked me if I could make up some new stories with the same characters.  I remembered a creative writing project I used to do with my sixth graders, which allowed them to create their own demigod hero, the son or daughter of any god they wanted, while having them describe a Greek-style quest for that hero. 
  "Off the top of my head, I made up Percy Jackson and told Haley all about his quest to recover Zeus' lightning bolt in modern day America.  It took about three nights to tell the whole story and, when I was done, Haley told me I should write it out as a book."
Those three nights ultimately became a yearlong odyssey for Riordan (pronounced Rye-or-dan) in completing his first book for young readers (he was already an established author, having written several prior novels, his first being the Tres Navarre private eye thriller, Big Red Tequila, in 1997).
"I picked a few of my sixth, seventh and eighth graders and asked them if they'd be willing to 'test drive' the novel," Riordan continues.  "I was nervous!  I'm used to showing my work to adults, and had no idea if kids would like Percy.  I finally understood what it must be like for them, turning in an essay to me and waiting to get their grades back!  Fortunately, the kids really liked it.  They had some good suggestions, too."
After the book's publication in 2005, it would be another five years before Hollywood would bring the first of the Percy Jackson stories to the screen.  While the studio explored turning Riordan's first book into a movie, the author continued the series by penning a new novel each year between 2006 and 2009.
  Chris Columbus was attracted to "Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief" because, as he relates, "We haven't seen the world of Greek Mythology in a story like this before," he elaborates.  "I think Rick Riordan tapped into something quite unique, juxtaposing the world of the ancient Greeks with the underbelly of contemporary America."
Columbus is no stranger to the world of fantasy.  In addition to launching the "Harry Potter" film franchise with his direction of the first two films and production of the third in the ongoing series, he also gained a tremendous following with three of his early screenplays, all original works: "Gremlins," "The Goonies" and "Young Sherlock Holmes."
Columbus describes his new genre effort as a contemporary adventure meets Greek-Mythology film, as opposed to a pure period-piece Greek myth with gods in flowing robes sitting on billowy clouds.  "This story has a sense of reality and an epic quality while still portraying a sinister, supernatural battle between good and evil," he explains.
Columbus chose a prior collaborator to adapt the book to the screen, Craig Titley, with whom Columbus and his producing partners at 1492 Pictures had worked on the hit comedy "Cheaper by the Dozen."  Titley's scholarly background in Greek Mythology was a timely bonus.  "Chris knew I was getting a Ph.D. in mythological studies when he sent the book my way," Titley relates.  "I had just finished my studies and thought this was perfect because my head was swimming in Greek myths and monsters and heroes.  And it's actually the kind of movie I've always wanted to see since I was a kid.  Mythology has always been hip, and there's kind of a mythology renaissance going on right now in pop culture.  It seems to have captured the imagination."
Even before Titley turned in his screenplay, Columbus and producer Michael Barnathan pitched their ideas for a "Percy Jackson" movie to the studio, later designing initial conceptual artwork to further illustrate their ideas.  "This concept art had Chris' vision and tone for the movie," Barnathan says. "It was important for Chris to design some monsters and creatures based clearly on old Greek mythological art and concepts, but take it in a new and fresh direction that we haven't seen.  So, we started our approach on paper with conceptual art.  The studio got very excited and saw that this could be bigger than just a young adult story." 

Casting the characters
Once they had a visual motif for the project, the filmmakers next turned to the script.  "It's a wonderful book, but you can't have everything that's in the book in the movie," explains Barnathan. "What we tried to do was retain the essence of the story, characters and the world that Rick created, and put it in a cinematic context."
"One of the big changes we made was upping the age of Percy and his friends," Titley notes.  "In the book, he was twelve years old.  It was just much more fun to make him seventeen.  With that age, we could play with Percy and Annabeth and their relationship."
"To me, this story was perfect because it had this whole great world of Greek Mythology populated by Greek monsters that we could create and design and put in our world," says Columbus.  "And, the heart of the story is about a young man who wants to save his mother and find out who is his father is.  So that made it a very emotional story.  The kind of story I respond to as a director."   Read more

The Design and visual effects
To bring the physical world of "Percy Jackson" to life, Columbus turned to veteran production designer Howard Cummings. Among several sets he designed for Columbus' epic fantasy story (he confirms he had, at one point in the schedule, eight different set builds going on simultaneously) was a replica of the Parthenon as it exists in Nashville's Parthenon Park, a massive stage set at Mammoth Studios where Columbus began production. (The company also built several sets on at North Shore Studios, the former Lions Gate lot in North Vancouver).
"The Parthenon was actually a full replica of the interior of the one built in Nashville," Cummings says about the majestic set.  "The Parthenon was fun just for the sheer scale of it.  We ended up going with lots of foam and different materials that were easily moveable."  Read more

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

CHRIS COLUMBUS (Director/Producer) is a major force in contemporary Hollywood and one of the most successful filmmakers of his generation. His eclectic gallery of motion pictures over the past 25 years runs the gamut from fantasy (Joe Dante's "Gremlins") and adventure (Richard Donner's "The Goonies") to comedy ("Home Alone" and "Home Alone 2") and the launching of one of the industry's most successful franchises ever, in the first two "Harry Potter" films.
Columbus was born in Spangler, Pennsylvania, and grew up outside of Youngstown, Ohio. As a youngster, he aspired to be a cartoonist for Marvel Comics, eventually making the connection between comic books and movie storyboards.  In high school, he began making homegrown 8mm films from his own storyboards (a practice which he continues to this day).  After high school, he enrolled in the Directors Program at New York University's prestigious Tisch School of the Arts.
The aspiring director first attained success as a screenwriter, selling his first script "Jocks" (a semi-autobiographical comedy about a Catholic schoolboy who tries out for a football team), while still in college.  After graduating from NYU, he immediately gained prominence in Hollywood by writing several original scripts produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment. 
The consecutive box-office hits of "Gremlins" (1984) and "The Goonies" (1985) were both original and entertaining films that intertwined high notes of offbeat, edgy, often outrageous humor against more classic adventure-thriller backdrops.  Continuing his association with Spielberg, he next collaborated with director Barry Levinson with another unique take on the genre, the fantasy adventure "Young Sherlock Holmes." 
These screenwriting achievements led Columbus to direct his first two features, the comedy "Adventures in Babysitting" (1987, ironically not from his own script), and his homage to the legend of Elvis Presley, "Heartbreak Hotel" a year later.
A meeting with John Hughes brought Columbus to the helm of the box-office phenomenon "Home Alone" (1990), the first of three collaborations with the prolific filmmaker which included the hit sequel "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" (1992) and another semi-autobiographical story, "Only the Lonely" (1991).  The latter, a bittersweet comedy-drama directed by Columbus from his own original screenplay, was praised for featuring one of the late John Candy's best performances, and for the return to the screen of legendary movie star Maureen O'Hara, a role he wrote specifically for the actress.
Columbus' smash hit comedy "Mrs. Doubtfire" (1993), starring Robin Williams and Sally Field, bent genders as well as genres, to great critical and public acclaim.  Columbus next directed another comedy "Nine Months" (1995), with Hugh Grant and Julianne Moore, before turning to drama with "Stepmom" (1998) starring Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon.  He reunited again with Williams on the poignant fantasy film, "Bicentennial Man."
Columbus faced a daunting task when he landed the assignment to direct "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" (2001), the first film based on J.K. Rowling's monumentally successful series of books.  With millions of avid, fanatical readers in a high state of expectation and anticipation, Columbus cast completely unknown youngsters Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint in the leading roles of Harry Potter and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley.  Once again, he demonstrated his acumen for nurturing and cultivating young talent by turning this inexperienced trio into natural screen performers.
The success of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" led Columbus to the second movie in the series, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" (2002), resulting in another huge global box-office success (both films sit among the Top 100 grossing films of all time).  He served as producer on the third film in the franchise, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" (like the first two, a BAFTA nominee) before directing the film version of the Pulitzer Prize winning Broadway musical "Rent."  He most recently stepped back into the director's chair to helm the romantic comedy, "I Love You, Beth Cooper," the project which preceded this one.
In addition to his writing and directorial achievements, Columbus and his producing partners at 1492 Pictures have made a series of commercial blockbusters that include "Fantastic Four" and the sequel, "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Surfer," "Night at the Museum" and "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," "Cheaper by the Dozen," "Christmas with the Kranks" (which Columbus also wrote) and "Jingle All the Way."

CRAIG TITLEY (Screenwriter) earned his undergraduate degree from Eastern Illinois University and his graduate degree from USC's renowned Peter Stark Producing Program in the university's school of cinematic arts.  He is currently studying for his Ph.D. in Mythological Studies at Pacifica Graduate School, home of the Joseph Campbell library and archives.
A native of Mattoon, Illinois, Titley gained early industry experience as a production assistant on such films as "Mobsters" and Joe Dante's "Matinee."  He segued into screenwriting on such films as co-writer on "See Spot Run," the box-office smash "Scooby-Doo" and both "Cheaper By the Dozen" features (credited with screen story for the 2003 remake and characters for the 2005 sequel). 
Titley recently had the opportunity of collaborating with George Lucas on his animated TV series "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," penning the episode entitled "Blue Shadow Virus," Titley's first foray in animation.

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