After the success of his first series, “Percy Jackson and the Olympians”, author Rick Riordan made the decision to bring his book to life through a Disney Plus television series. Riordan’s self directed depiction of his first book in the series premiered on Dec. 20, 2023, leaving fans eager for more episodes.
In the attempts of recording Percy Jackson movies over a decade ago, fans were left with much disappointment as Riordan was not involved in the filming process. The two movies that were created, replicating “The Lightning Thief” and “The Sea of Monsters”, drifted from the original plot of the books.
“The movies changed everything that was beloved about the books, including the age of the characters and the tone of the story”, reporter Brandon Moreno said.
Although Riordan’s adaptation of the show was more accurate than the movies, his casting choices faced much backlash. The lead character, Annabeth, who Riordan described in the books as blonde and white, was casted by black actress Leah Sava Jeffries. Annabeth was well known for these physical features in the books, so fans were taken off guard by the casting choice. However, Riordan is confident in his casting decisions.
“Making [my] franchise more diverse by casting Leah Jeffries as Annabeth Chase in the upcoming Disney+ series was always staying true to the reason [I] wrote the “Percy Jackson” books in the first place”, Riordan said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “Jeffries will be a role model for new generations of girls who will see in her the kind of hero they want to be”.
Riordan wasted no time getting the flow of the series going, starting off the first episode with scripts directly verbatim to the text. The premiere of the first episode, “I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher”, gave the viewers a background on who Percy Jackson is and the obstacles he has faced in life so far. Every episode title followed the theme of the books and shared the title as chapters Riordan compacted 22 chapters into eight episodes, using the most popular chapter titles to label each of the episodes.
Along with the accuracy of the book, many fans show excitement towards the casting choice of Percy Jackson, played by Walker Scobell.
“His sarcasm and sense of humor is exactly like Percy’s. There is genuinely no one else who could play him as well as Walker does. When I found out Walker got the role, I was ten times more excited for the show”, said an anonymous Walpole High School Student.
Additionally, it did not take long for the cast to create a strong bond. Almost immediately after the cast met one another, consistent posts were uploaded to social media of the group all hanging out. The show is set at a summer camp, so the majority of the cast ranges from ages twelve to eighteen.
“It did not feel like work…I just was so excited to go to set every day and see everyone. We definitely got super close, all the cast. We, for sure, hit the jackpot with this team. I consider everyone on set to be some of my closest friends to this day, and we still talk all the time”, Charlie Bushnell, the actor of Luke Castellan said.
The newly filmed series sparked much excitement among the Percy Jackson fan base. The second series was announced on Feb. 10, about a week after the season finale. The release date has not yet been released, however fans are already showing much excitement.
