Earlier this month, war waged between Percy Jackson and Harry Potter fans, following reports the latter franchise was set to receive a reboot. Now, upon Warner Bros. Discovery’s official announcement that a Harry Potter series is indeed in the works, the Twitter scrap has reached near-nuclear levels, as the potential for competing fantasy reboots draws ever-closer.
According to WBD’s announcement, the Harry Potter reboot will be produced over the course of a decade, with each season focusing on one of the seven entries in J.K. Rowling’s original book series. Rowling will serve as an executive producer on the series, which will feature an entirely new cast and remain more faithful to the source material than the previous film franchise.
In response, Percy Jackson fans set flame to their timelines, urging users to instead rally around the upcoming, already announced reboot of their franchise titled Percy Jackson and the Olympians. According to its followers, the Disney Plus series will do “countless things way better than Harry Potter,” with other fans taking particular umbrage with Disney itself.
“I hope people know they’re partly doing this to compete with the Percy Jackson show,” one user wrote in response to the announcement, with another adding that “Disney ruins everything it touches.” Other Percy Jackson followers seemed indifferent to the news, simply ignoring a return to Hogwarts and writing: “Anyways, stream Percy Jackson and the Olympians in 2024.”
Meanwhile, on the opposing end of the debate, some Harry Potter fans were quick to come to the reboots defense, saying that the promising of a faithful “could be nice.” The user continued: “here were many people that criticized the movies we know because they changed things or characters or storylines so maybe it could nice? Wait and see.”
Occupying a place somewhere in the middle of the war, some fans vouched for an appreciation of both fantasy reboots. “Why do I keep seeing Percy Jackson fans shitting on HP for no reason on Twitter,” one user questioned. “There’s nothing wrong if u think one series is better than the other but to actively shit on it is kinda childish.”
Regardless of where you fall in the great young adult fantasy franchise reboot war (that’s quite mouthful), the news is above all a reminder of Hollywood’s growing franchise fatigue.