Columbus credits his interest in Percy Jackson to still being a kid at heart. "I love to see movies where I haven’t seen things before, and I haven’t seen the world of Greek mythology done really well on screen. It’s always those cheesy stop-motion monsters, so I really wanted to do them in a much more interesting way."
So how is he achieving the look? "Really fine CGI work," answered Columbus. "We have Uma Thurman playing Medusa, but she’s wearing those things on her head. We’re putting several snakes in her hair that move, and move with the performance. It’s really interesting."
Fans of the books will be interested to know the film won't follow the books word for word. "There’s a bit of a sense of liberation with Percy Jackson because we’re changing the books. I wouldn’t say significantly, but we’re able to change them a little bit."
But Columbus says he's not really worried about the reaction of fans to the changes. "I think they’ll be excited," said Columbus. "I’m really excited about the movie. I think we’ve made some of the right choices. A couple of the other books are going to be a bigger challenge, but I think they’ll be real happy with this one."
Columbus hopes to be able to continue with the franchise and direct future Percy Jackson films. He's no stranger to popular film franchises having helmed the first two Harry Potter movies, though he doesn't regret having left that blockbuster franchise behind. "No, I don’t have any regrets. The only regret I have is mostly emotional. I see those kids on screen and it’s like seeing part of your family on screen. They’re aging before my eyes. And, you see all the sets that we built and all the actors that we cast, and it’s very surreal because it’s an entire world that I put together, yet I’m not part of anymore. So, that part of it is a little melancholy, but I don’t want to go back. Not now."
Still, Columbus continues to be a fan of the Harry Potter franchise. "I like them all. I really do. I really like Goblet of Fire a lot. I haven’t seen the new one yet. It was weird to see them because it was like we had set into pattern how those seven movies were going to be made, with the exception of the seventh book being split into two movies. We talked about splitting the fourth book into two movies because the fourth book was huge in length. My initial shock was, 'Oh, my God, Tom Felton looks so old,' or 'The kids are so good now.'"
