Netflix is no longer adapting Rick Riordan‘s “Kane Chronicles” book series into feature films.
Riordan, best known as the author of the “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” books, shared the news while responding to question from a fan on Goodreads.
“Right now, Kane Chronicles is in ‘turnaround,’ which means Netflix has decided not to move forward and their option has lapsed after trying for two years to develop a script they liked,” he wrote. “Now it depends on whether another studio would like to step in, assume the preproduction costs, and move forward.”
Riordan announced the development of “The Kane Chronicles” film trilogy in 2020. The first film, based on 2010’s “The Red Pyramid,” was penned by “Star Trek: Prodigy” writer Diandra Pendleton-Thompson, according to a 2022 blog post where Riordan wrote that he was expecting a new script draft soon.
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“The Red Pyramid,” along with “The Throne of Fire” (2011) and “The Serpent’s Shadow” (2012), followed Carter and Sadie Kane, the teen descendants of Egyptian pharaohs Narmer and Ramses the Great. In a series of spinoff novels called “Demigods and Magicians,” characters from “The Kane Chronicles” crossover into the “Percy Jackson” universe.
The news comes amid a rise in appetite for screen adaptations of Riordan’s work: Disney+ concluded the first season of its “Percy Jackson” TV series on Jan. 30, which Disney CEO Bob Iger touted as a success on the company’s latest quarterly earnings call. Along with announcing a Season 2 renewal, Iger said that the series had been streamed for over 110 million hours, which translates to an estimated 20.6 million total views.
At the same time, studios throughout Hollywood are tightening their belts, as Riordan noted on Goodreads: “This is not at all unusual. It happens, I would guess, with the majority of film projects. Also, the streaming industry as a whole is shrinking their development slate right now, meaning they are cancelling more content and making less content. Kane got caught in that trend, despite the strong success of Percy TV.”
Netflix did not immediately respond to Variety‘s request for comment.
