| One day, Harry Potter will finish. With that in mind, Fox have kickstarted their hoped-for Percy Jackson franchise early. They even have Chris Columbus (The Philosopher's Stone, The Chamber of Secrets) on hand as director. Here's the teaser trailer. The books (five so far, plus peripheral bits and pieces) by Rick Riordan are reliable boys' own adventures mashing up Clash of the Titans style Greek mythology and derring-do with a contemporary American setting, racing along and filling that Potter shaped hole in your reading habits. They're not Rowling level blockbusters yet, but they're solid performers alongside the likes of Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider books. As a series opener, the movie obviously needs a clunky title, so, in full, we give you Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. It stars relative newcomer Logan Lerman as Percy (he was pretty good as Christian Bale's son in 3:10 to Yuma) and has one of those fantasy casts bulked up by reliable Brits; in this case Steve Coogan, Pierce Brosnan, Sean Bean (of course) and Ray Winston. We found ourselves half expecting a voice to go "Zuuuuuuullll" at the big reveal when he emerged from the elevator, but what the hey. The film's due out on February 12, 2010. | 
