For years, fans of Rick Riordan’s young adult book series “Percy Jackson & the Olympians” have asked for the series to have a true live-action adaptation that outdoes the two movies from 2010 and 2013 respectively. And now their wishes have been fulfilled as Disney has picked up the series for a TV series adaptation with Rick Riordan himself having a big part in its production.
The first 2 books in the series were originally adapted by 21st Century Fox around a decade ago, and the movies were complete box office failures. Not only did the movies fail with the average movie watcher and potentially new fans, but fans of the original book series were even more disappointed with the adaptations. The overwhelming bad reviews and dislike of the movie series from fans caused the 2nd movie to be the last.
After years of wondering if the beloved series would ever be remade for another live action adaptation that did the original story justice, we finally have our answer in the form of a Disney+ series. Season 1 is said to cover the events of the first book, The Lightning Thief, the same as the first original movie. This season reportedly will have eight episodes. Over the recent months of filming and production, Riordan has provided fans with behind the scenes info, pictures, and revealing casting for certain Olympians.
For readers unfamiliar with the PJO series and the many branching book series Riordan has created afterwards, the series follows a 12-year old boy named Percy Jackson from New York City who discovers he is the son of the Greek God, Poseidon. Percy finds himself at a place called Camp Half-blood, a place for demi-god children to live. Without giving too much away, the plot of the first book has Percy being accused of stealing Zeus’ lighting bolt; i.e the subtitle “The Lightning Thief.”
Walker Scobell was the first to be revealed for the cast, playing the titular character himself, Percy Jackson. Some viewers may recognize Scobell from his major role in Netflix’s “The Adam Project” from earlier this year. In May, Riordan took to his blog to reveal the casting for the other two characters in the main trio. Leah Sava Jeffries and Aryan Simhadri are to play the roles of Annabeth Chase and Grover Underwood, Percy’s two closest friends throughout the series. Jeffries and Simhadri both have acting experience but these roles will be one of their first major roles in an acclaimed series. Many fans appreciate the fact that these actors have ages more accurate to that of their ages in the original series, whereas the movies aged up Percy and his demi-god friends.
Other casting choices have been revealed such as WWE Star Adam Copeland playing Ares, the God of war. The creator and star of “Hamilton”, Lin-Manuel Miranda will be appearing as the messenger god, Hermes. Comedy actor Jason Mantzoukas will be playing Dionysus, the God of wine and the counselor at Camp Half-blood. And lastly, Glynn Turman will play Chiron, Percy’s centaur mentor.
All that’s left for fans to do is hope and trust that this adaptation will finally do the series justice. “Percy Jackson & the Olympians” will be streaming on Disney+ sometime early 2024! Click down below to check out the teaser trailer!