Following the successful wave of the first movie “Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief,” the latest adaptation, ‘Sea of Monsters” brings Percy along with his friends in uncharted waters to battle terrifying creatures and the ultimate Evil to retrieve the Golden Fleece and bring it back in time to save their world.
Directed by Thor Freudenthal, Lerman reprises his role as the titular hero, the demigod son of Poseidon, who embarks on his own, modern-day Odyssey. “At the beginning of this film, Percy is not living up to his potential and he doubts himself,” says Lerman. “Percy feels abandoned by his father, the Greek god Poseidon, and then, he finds out that he has a brother.”
If shocking family revelations weren’t enough, Percy must deal with Polyphemus, an enormous and powerful Cyclops; Charybdis, the sea monster; the raging Colchis Bull, a giant, metallic and fire-breathing creature that attacks Camp Half-Blood; the Manticore, a formidable monster with a lion’s body and a long, scorpion-like tail; and the ancient Oracle, an ancient mummified mystic with empty eye sockets and skeletal features. The Oracle further complicates Percy’s sense of self and duty, says Lerman, when it tells him he “is either going to destroy Olympus or save it. He’s not sure if he can rise to the occasion.”
Lerman remembers three months of fight training on the first Percy Jackson film, so was grateful all of that knowledge was inherent to begin with, and the time didn’t need repeating for “Sea of Monsters.” “It was insane,” he says. “It was our first time doing anything like this so we really had to figure it out. I’d never held a sword before. But now we kind of know what we’re doing and it was much, much easier to jump back into it.”
Lerman says that after two movies playing Percy he knows his way around a sword. So is he a dangerous man to be around? “I think so,” he laughs. “But then, I think anyone would probably be. I think it’s pretty easy. You just chop.”
Percy has a lot at stake, according to Freudenthal. “He’s trying to save Camp Half-Blood and prove himself as a hero. He’s grown distant from his father, who is not really responding to his requests for help. Percy embarks upon his ‘odyssey’ for two reasons: to save his home, and to ascertain if he is indeed a hero.”
The demigods return when “Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters” opens August 7 in theaters nationwide from 20th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.
