Picture: Rick Riordan
Netflix is no longer progressing with its planned adaptations of the popular book series Kane Chronicles by Rick Riordan.
First announced to be in development back in September 2020, the adaptations would be based on the works of the prolific author Rick Riordan, who is behind Percy Jackson and the Olympians (currently being adapted into a Disney+ series which was just renewed for a second season) and Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, The Trials of Apollo and Daughter of the Deep.
“An exciting announcement as posted on social media concerning the Kane Chronicles,” reads the initial blog post, “We are developing the series for feature films on Netflix! We have been working on this deal since last October, about the same time we started working on Percy, and I’m so glad I can now announce it! That’s all I can say for the moment, but stay tuned. I will try to answer some questions during the Tower of Nero tour events.”
Since that post, we’ve been kept up-to-date semi-regularly on social media about the development. As we’ve covered in our main preview for the show, the most recent update on the show came in August 2022 when it was posted that Diandra Pendleton-Thompson was actively working on the revisions of the script of The Red Pyramid:
“This week, we are also expecting the latest draft of the script for The Kane Chronicles: The Red Pyramid from Diandra Pendleton-Thompson, and I can’t wait to read it! She’s done a fantastic job on everything I’ve seen so far, which makes me even more excited to get this project moving forward at Netflix.”
Since then, the status of the movies has been quiet.
Picture: Rick Riordan
Riordan, who is refreshingly open with his fans on how the industry that he operates in works and honest when it comes to providing timely updates, took to GoodReads to say that the project isn’t currently set to move forward:
Replying to a question on the book site, the author was asked about the status of the Kane Chronicles and Magnus Chase adaptations. He responded as follows:
“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. Now it depends on whether another studio would like to step in, assume the preproduction costs, and move forward. 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.”
Of course, this is disappointing news, but sadly, it is a fact of life when it comes to TV and movie projects. We constantly hear of projects that haven’t been able to get to a greenlight phase and even times when titles have been shelved after filming!
h/t Percy Jackson News on Twitter/X for finding the answer on GoodReads first.
Are you disappointed Netflix isn’t moving forward with its planned Kane Chronicles adaptations? Let us know in the comments down below.
