Percy Jackson and the Olympians Utilizes The Mandalorian’s Volume Technology

Development on Disney+’s take on Percy Jackson and the Olympians has moved at lightning speed since the beginning of 2022. The first season, which will be based on Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, was green lit by the House of Mouse this past January. Since then, the series has added Walker Scobell (The Adam Project) in the titular role, with fellow young stars Leah Sava Jeffries, Aryan Simhadri, and Charlie Bushnell filling out the supporting cast. The eight-month Percy Jackson production journey officially kicked off in Vancouver on June 2, and recent reports emphasize that this series is sparing no expense.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, The larger-than-life visuals of Percy Jackson and the Olympians will be brought to live-action via Industrial Light & Magic’s StageCraft LED stage. Also known as The Volume, this particular newly-constructed virtual stage stretches 95 feet and is just the fifth of its kind.

Other StageCrafts are located in Manhattan Beach, CA, The Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, CA, and Pinewood Studios in London. The revolutionary technology first burst onto the scene with Disney+’s The Mandalorian, and has since helped birth landscapes for The Batman and Obi-Wan Kenobi. 

Upcoming Marvel Studios productions like Thor: Love and Thunder and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will also utilize The Volume, with the latter having a temporary StageCraft built in Sydney specifically for its production.

Percy Jackson author and series executive producer Rick Riordan added that this ILM partnership has been in the works for “over a year,” and the specific iteration of The Volume is doing things that “have never been attempted before.”

“Our new Volume stage is an even more cutting-edge version of that wraparound virtual environment, making it one of the most advanced production stages in the world,” Riordan said. “We are using it for things that have never been attempted before, creating settings so realistic that if we do it right, you should never be able to guess which scenes were done on location and which were done on the stage.”

Riordan continued by showing gratitude to Disney+, stressing that an investment like this particular Volume is a reflection on how much the studio values this series.

“I want to acknowledge the unwavering support of our executives at the studio and the streaming service,” Riordan said. “Their investment in this show is a sign of how important Percy Jackson is to them, and how committed they are to making the highest quality adaptation you fans deserve. This show is going to look spectacular, and set a new standard for other shows to follow.”

While Percy Jackson is breaking in this Vancouver-based StageCraft, it will be far from the last project to utilize it.

“The stage we have built will be home to Percy and potentially dozens more of our most ambitious series,” 20th Television Executive VP of Production Nissa Diederich noted.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians is currently in production, and is tentatively scheduled to finish filming on January 25, 2023.