Potter-like wiz Percy Jackson is a Greek demigod

A Hollywood version of Harry Potter has emerged in the form of a 12-year-old boy named Percy Jackson, a demigod who turns out to be the son of the Greek god Poseidon.

The movie, which is rivalling JK Rowling's, has already provoked shouts of plagiarism from Potter fans, who are upset by the similarities between Hogwarts hero and Jackson.

The director and producers of 'Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief' are also under fire from bloggers who responded to early excerpts from the film by denouncing it as "Harry Potter with Greek mythology".

The film, due to be released in February, is based on a popular series of children's fantasy books by Rick Riordan, a former Texas teacher who has acknowledged being "a huge fan" of Rowling's work.

Riordan insists in an entry on his website that "Percy and Harry are very different kids who live in very different worlds".

Yet the launch of a big-budget Jackson blockbuster has focused attention on parallels between the two, not least because the Jackson film is directed by Chris Columbus, who also made the first two Potter films.

"I know, I know, it's the inevitable question on this picture," Times Online quoted Columbus as telling the Los Angeles Times last week.

"We would be fools not to hope for the same kind of audience [as the Potter films]," he stated.

Columbus and his producers acknowledge "similarities": each series features three main characters, two boys and a girl, and both use familiar landmarks, a London railway platform and a New York skyscraper, as gateways to hidden worlds.

When the studio released its first Jackson preview earlier this year, Potter fans were not impressed.

The clip showed Percy stepping into an Empire State Building lift and blasting through the skyscraper's roof.

The lift doors open on Mount Olympus, a dark, brooding landscape that looks uncannily like Hogwarts at night.

"Potter fans aren't dumb. They are sure to see their beloved character being ripped off," Christopher Campbell, a Hollywood blogger, added. (ANI)

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