Teaser Trailer for Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief

Published by Jeff Leins on: July 15th, 2009

When Fox started assembling their all-star cast for Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief, I asked along with Entertainment Weekly if this could be the next Harry Potter.  Already the studio is doing what they can to align themselves with the multi-billion dollar franchise since the teaser trailer is playing in front of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

The novel adaptation also borrows the director who kicked off the J.K. Rowling series, Chris Columbus, after Warner Bros picked up new talent and moved Potter in a more mature trajectory.  Columbus may have created the magical whimsy of Hogwarts, but he’s recreated the same look now for Olympus, the city of gods.  By the way, his latest is I Love You, Beth Cooper, one of the biggest disasters of the summer.

The first book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians chain is The Lightning Thief, which has sold 1.2 million copies since 2005.  So it’s not exactly the first Harry Potter (120 million sold worldwide), but when I saw the teaser last night at the midnight Half-Blood Prince show a girl literally squealed in delight for a minute and a half.

Since the teaser trailer is so short, it doesn’t include Uma Thurman (Medusa), Rosario Dawson (Persephone), Sean Bean (Zeus), Pierce Brosnan (Chiron), Catherine Keener (Percy’s mother), Kevin McKidd (Poseidon), or Steve Coogan (Hades).

Watch it below:

Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief is out on the un-Potter-like February 12, 2010.