The Disney+ series debuted on Dec. 19 with a two-episode premiere, and will drop new episodes weekly.
When Percy Jackson fans learned of a fresh new adaptation premiering on Disney+, one question was raised: will there be a season 2? Percy Jackson and the Olympians showrunners Jonathan E. Steinberg and Dan Shotz certainly hope so!
"I mean, we talked about it, you know, the goal has always been a book a season going forward," Shotz told ET. "We're in this moment right now, putting this out there. It's been a four-year process to get this here through COVID and everything else that's taken place. But it's pretty exciting just to launch this and see how people respond to it. And the hope is to make many more of this."
The Disney+ series differs notably from the two Logan Lerman-led features that premiered in theaters.
This time around, author Rick Riordan is intimately involved with the adaptation's production: the author revealed in a blog post that he served as executive producer, co-writing the pilot episode and creating a series bible for the series with Steinberg, as well as planning the plot for the first season and creating ideas for potential future seasons.
Riordan has never been shy about expressing his feelings about the movies adapted from his books. The author has been brutally candid about not seeing the films but knowing they're not his Percy Jackson.
In 2021, a fan tweeted Riordan asking if a scene in 2010's Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief had been censored for streaming. "They should censor the entire thing," Riordan replied in a since-deleted tweet. "Just two hours of blank screen." (A sequel, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, was released in 2013.)
"I judge them from having read the scripts, because I care most about the story," he added. "I certainly have nothing against the very talented actors. Not their fault. I'm just sorry they got dragged into that mess."
Riordan's five-book series centers on Perseus "Percy" Jackson, a 12-year-old boy who discovers he's the son of a Greek god. Percy Jackson and the Olympians' first season will follow the first book, in which Percy winds up at a summer camp for fellow demigods and learns more about his lineage and how to use his newfound powers. When Percy is framed for stealing Zeus' lightning bolt, he and his friends embark on a frantic journey to find the real thief to prevent an all-out war between the gods.
Unlike the films, in which Percy was aged up to a teenager in the films to suit Lerman's older look, the series has stuck closer to the book's depiction of the titular hero.
The Adam Project's Walker Scobell snagged the role of the titular hero, with Leah Sava Jeffries and Aryan Simhadri, who will portray Annabeth Chase and Grover Underwood, respectively, rounding out the show's central trio.
"I love the Percy Jackson fandom, I've been a part of it since I was in third grade," Scobell gushed to ET. "I do not want to let them down, you know? We've all tried very hard in this, so we want them to be excited for it."
Simhadri agreed with his co-star, saying, "With so much expectations on it, we don't want to let anybody down, most of all ourselves. We want to make something we would want to watch, too, as fans of the books."
Scobell noted that the show's episode format allowed them to get "almost everything [in] the books," to which Jeffries added that fans of the book series will appreciate the level of information and depth that the TV series incorporates in their rendition of the stories. Even those who haven't read the books will enjoy the level of detail.
"I definitely felt like if you haven't read the books... you gotta watch the series because we had a lot of the details from the books and stuff," she boasted, noting that the series also "adds a lot more" to flesh out the stories in the eight-episode season. "I really feel like if you haven't watched [the films], the series will be great for you 'cause you're not missing out on things that they couldn't fit in a two-hour movie."
As Riordan has emphasized in previous posts to his blog, the idea behind the series is to adapt one book per season.
In a blog post shared in March, Riordan told fans that the Percy Jackson writers' room had begun work on season 2, but stressed that "this does NOT mean the second season has been green-lit yet."
"[W]e have started work on the writers' room for season two. This does NOT mean the second season has been green-lit yet. It's too early for that. But we have been approved to start developing scripts, and I think everyone's expectation is that a second season will happen if all goes as planned," Riordan wrote. "It sure is exciting to be part of the room, though. We've broken down the action of the second Percy Jackson book, The Sea of Monsters, into a series of episodes, and have begun outlining what the first episodes would look like."
He cautioned, "This is all HYPOTHETICAL at this point. We have big plans, but nothing is green-lit (past the writers room) and nothing is set in stone. Fingers crossed, though, the first season does as well as we hope, and leads to an even greater second!"
Unsurprisingly, the season 2 writers' room paused production after the Writers Guild of America (WGA) went on strike in May and SAG-AFTRA followed suit in July.
When SAG-AFTRA ratified a new, three-year contract with the AMPTP last month, six weeks after the WGA strike officially ended, Riordan shared a brief message of celebration and hope for the show's follow-up.
"I am delighted that our actors for Percy Jackson will now be able to talk about the show, attend publicity events, and of course, get back to work when/if we get going for a second season," he wrote in a blog post. "No further news on that front, but fingers remain crossed, as always."
Percy Jackson fans can keep their fingers crossed too as the series airs new episodes weekly on Disney+.
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