"Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief" is directed by Chris Columbus (Harry Potter), and stars Logan Lurman, Uma Thurman, and Pierce Brosnan. The film is being released February 12 by 20th Century Fox.

Chris Columbus was attracted to "Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief" because, as he relates, "We haven't seen the world of Greek Mythology in a story like this before," he elaborates. "I think Rick Riordan tapped into something quite unique, juxtaposing the world of the ancient Greeks with the underbelly of contemporary America."

Columbus is no stranger to the world of fantasy. In addition to launching the "Harry Potter" film franchise by directing the first two films and serving as a producer on the third, he gained a tremendous following with three of his early, original screenplays: "Gremlins," "The Goonies" and "Young Sherlock Holmes."

Columbus describes his new genre effort as a contemporary adventure meets Greek-Mythology film, as opposed to a pure period-piece Greek myth with gods in flowing robes sitting on billowy clouds. "This story has a sense of reality and an epic quality while still portraying a sinister, supernatural battle between good and evil," he explains.

To adapt the book, Columbus chose Craig Titley, with whom Columbus and his producing partners at 1492 Pictures had worked on the hit comedy "Cheaper by the Dozen." Titley's scholarly background in Greek Mythology was a timely bonus. "Chris knew I was getting a Ph.D. in mythological studies when he sent the book my way," Titley relates. "I thought this was a perfect assignment for me because my head was swimming in Greek myths, monsters and heroes. And it's actually the kind of movie I've wanted to see since I was a kid. Mythology has always been hip, and there's kind of a mythology renaissance going on right now in pop culture."

Even before Titley turned in his screenplay, Columbus and producer Michael Barnathan pitched their ideas for a "Percy Jackson" movie to the studio, later designing initial conceptual artwork to further illustrate their ideas. "This concept art had Chris' vision and tone for the movie," Barnathan says. "It was important for Chris to design some monsters and creatures based clearly on old Greek mythological art and concepts, but take it in a new and fresh direction. So, we started our approach on paper with conceptual art. The studio got very excited and saw that this could be bigger than just a young adult story."

Once they had a visual motif for the project, the filmmakers next turned to the script. "It's a wonderful book, but it's impossible to incorporate all the book's elements into the movie," explains Barnathan. "What we tried to do was retain the essence of the story, characters and the world that Rick created, and put it in a cinematic context."

"One of the big changes we made was upping the age of Percy and his friends," Titley notes. "In the book, he was twelve years old. It was just much more fun to make him seventeen. With that age, we could play with Percy and Annabeth and their relationship."

"To me, this story was perfect because it had this whole great world of Greek Mythology populated by monsters we could create and design and put in our world," says Columbus. "And, the heart of the story is about a young man who wants to save his mother and find out who is his father is. So that made it a very emotional story. The kind of story I respond to as a director."