Disney+ is turning Rick Riordan’s Egyptian-mythology saga The Kane Chronicles into a live-action series, reuniting the author with the streamer that’s already home to Percy Jackson and the Olympians and further cementing a shared “Riordanverse” on television. The project is in development at 20th Television, with Riordan co-creating the series alongside writer-director Angela Robinson, best known for genre and character-driven work like True Blood, The L Word, and the biopic Professor Marston and the Wonder Women. A logline shared in industry coverage teases a blend of family drama and apocalyptic stakes: when their father unleashes the god of chaos and disappears, the estranged Kane siblings must master their inherited magic, ally with gods and mortals, and save both their dad and the modern world from warring deities.
Based on Riordan’s trilogy—The Red Pyramid, The Throne of Fire, and The Serpent’s Shadow—the series follows siblings Carter and Sadie Kane, who were raised on opposite sides of the globe after their mother’s death. Carter travels with their Egyptologist father Julius Kane, while Sadie grows up with their grandparents in London, until a late-night “research experiment” at the British Museum goes catastrophically wrong and frees the desert god Set. The books mix snarky, alternating first-person narration with globe-hopping adventures, resurrecting Egypt’s pantheon into the modern day and leaning into themes of diaspora, family legacy, and the weight of wielding ancient power. Crucially for franchise fans, The Kane Chronicles is set in the same continuity as Riordan’s Greek and Roman mythology books, with later crossover stories linking the Kanes to Percy Jackson and his friends.
This Disney+ run isn’t the series’ first trip through Hollywood development. Riordan and his production company Mythomagic previously sold adaptation rights to Netflix, where the plan was to turn each book into a live-action feature film trilogy produced with the author’s close involvement. Scripts were developed for an adaptation of The Red Pyramid, but by 2024 the project had stalled; Riordan’s team explained that Netflix ultimately let its option lapse after failing to land on a script the streamer was happy with, sending the project into “turnaround.” Around the same time, rumors swirled that Disney+ had already snapped up the property, but Mythomagic publicly clarified that there were no signed deals then and that discussions with Disney were still at a tentative stage. The new wave of reporting in 2026, led by outlets like Deadline and echoed by genre press, marks the first time the series has been formally tied to Disney+ development with named creative leadership attached.
Angela Robinson’s involvement is a major signal of intent. She has a track record of balancing pulpy genre thrills with sharp character work on shows like True Blood and The L Word, and she wrote and directed Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, a stylish biopic about the unconventional relationship behind DC’s Amazonian icon. Robinson has also directed episodes of Netflix’s Wednesday, giving her hands-on experience with teen-centered supernatural storytelling and tone-driven worldbuilding. Pairing her sensibilities with Riordan’s closer-than-ever oversight—after the much-criticized early 2010s Percy Jackson films, he has insisted on deep creative control over new adaptations—suggests a version of The Kane Chronicles that leans into both its adventurous set pieces and its biracial, globe-trotting family dynamics.
The move also fits Disney’s broader strategy of building a cohesive mythological franchise around Riordan’s work. Percy Jackson and the Olympians, which premiered on Disney+ in December 2023, delivered a more faithful take on the books and quickly secured a second season, with Riordan serving as co-creator and executive producer. Fans have already seen hints of a larger tapestry, and in the novels the Kane siblings share the stage with Percy and Annabeth in crossover novellas like The Son of Sobek, The Staff of Serapis, and The Crown of Ptolemy. Bringing the Kanes into the same streaming ecosystem creates an obvious runway for eventual team-ups and makes it easier for Disney to market an interconnected “Riordanverse” that spans Greek, Roman, Norse, and Egyptian mythologies.
For now, the project remains in early development: no cast, directors, or production timeline have been announced, and reports emphasize that Disney+ has not yet given a formal series order, only a development commitment. Still, the combination of Riordan’s hands-on involvement, Robinson’s genre pedigree, and Disney’s proven willingness to invest heavily in the Percy Jackson brand has fans already speculating about elaborate magical set pieces, globe-spanning locations, and how faithfully the show will translate the books’ dual-narrator structure. If The Kane Chronicles moves forward to series, it will not only bring Egyptian gods crashing into the Disney+ lineup—it could also be the clearest sign yet that the streamer hopes to build a long-term, multi-mythology fantasy universe to rival its superhero and Star Wars offerings.
