Percy Jackson TV Series Live Action in Disney+: Everything We Know So Far

Percy Jackson and the Gods of Olympus will finally have the adaptation it deserves after the really poor and inaccurate movies made by Fox in 2010 and 2013. Thanks to the writer Rick Riordan, and the enthusiasm and support of the big fan bases of the books all over the world, in the spring of 2020, the saga caught Disney’s interest as a possible new TV show for their streaming platform. They gave Rick Riordan the green light to start working on the script.

Two years later there are a lot of reasons to be excited and optimistic about the quality and book accuracy of this new adaptation. Starting off with how exciting and confident the writer Rick Riordan is with this project. Rick Riordan has been given multiple transparent updates about every step in the process of developing the show through his blog to the fans. He is part of the writing room for the show, a thing he wasn’t allowed to be in the movie. He is also one of the executive producers with his wife, Becky Riordan, Joe E. Steinberg, and Dan Shotz (Black Sails showrunners). The writer’s room is full of talented and experienced people: Daphne Olive and Joe E. Steinberg (Black Sails), Monica Owusu Breen (Lost), Joe Tracz (Percy Jackson: The Musical), and Steward Stranberg (The Old Man).  

The art design department is something that personally excites me the most. They’re so much material with all the monsters, Camp-Half Blood, and the Gods and Olympus that I was kind of worried who was going to be chosen to be in changed, but the art department is going to be led by the best professional in the ambit: Dan Hennah (Lord of the Rings production design), John Wilcox (paint coordinator), Dean Goodline (property master in the art department), and Brendan Jefferson (Thor: Ragnarok art director). The costume design will be led by Tish Monaghn (Twilight movies).

The first two episodes will be directed by James Bobin (Muppets movie, and The Mysterious Benedict Society), while Scott Kukuruds and Peter Whyte will be assistant directors (The Adam Project, Deadpool 1 and 2, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes). Jet Wikilson (Daredevil) and Anders Engstron (Hanna, See) will also direct some of the episodes. 

The first season will cover the entire first book and will have 8 chapters of approximately 45 minutes. It will be filmed in Vancouver, Canada, in the Mammoth Studio. Filming is set to begin on June 2th 2022 and end on January 28th, 2022. We have known thanks to the writer that they would be using StageCraft Technology for the CGI; the same one that was used in other Disney shows like, “The Mandalorian”. 

Last but not least I’m going to talk about the actors who will play Percy, Groover, and Annabeth. Walker Scobell is 13 years old, just one year older than Percy’s age in the first book. He is relatively new to the industry being the Netflix movie, “The Adam Project” his debut on the screen, where he played a young version of Ryan Reynolds. His cast was announced by Rick Riordan in his blog on April 23rd. “It was obvious to me and the rest of the team that Walker had the perfect mix of comedic timing, sweetness, rebelliousness, snark, and heroism to embody our hero Percy Jackson ”. Rick praises Walker in his blog. 

          Groover will be played by Aryan Simhadr, a 16 years old Indian-American actor. He is a rising star in Disney, being one of the main characters in the reboot of the movie, “Cheaper by the Dozen.”  Rick showed confidence about Aryan abilities to kill the comedy timing and sweetness of Groover while also having a really good dynamic with Walker. His cast was announced at the same time as Annabeth’s cast.

         Leah Sava Jeffrey will be playing Annabeth in the show. She is the youngest of the three, being born just a few months after Walker. She has been acting since a really young age, appearing as a recurrent actress in the show Empire as one of the main characters’ daughters. She has recently been working on a family comedy, “Something from Tiffany,” and a thriller called, “Beast” with Idris Elba. Her cast was sadly controversial for not physically resembling the description of Annabeth in the book, but Rick didn’t waste time cutting every doubt about his decision, highly praising Leah’s acting abilities. “Watching her act with Walker and Aryan, I saw Annabeth Chase come to life. As soon as you see her on the screen, you will know what I mean. The Wise Girl has arrived!“  Rick wrote in his blog 

Rick has shown contagious confidence and enthusiasm in every step of the process and even though we don’t know exactly when the show will be aired, I’m pretty sure that next summer we will finally be able to watch an accurate Percy Jackson show. 

“This will be The Lightning Thief — the story you know and love, but with added depth and layers of nuance that many of you have been yearning to know about, judging from the fan letters I have received over the past fifteen years“