Percy Jackson and the Olympians is quickly approaching the end of its eight-month production journey. The serialized adaptation of Rick Riordan’s best-selling novels kicked off filming this past June, making Vancouver its home for the foreseeable future. This eight-episode first season carried production throughout the summer, taking a brief break to bring Riordan and the core Percy Jackson trio of Walker Scobell (Percy), Leah Jeffries (Annabeth), and Aryan Simhadri (Grover) to D23 Expo to premiere the show’s first teaser trailer.
Since that September presentation, it has been all gas and no brakes for the upcoming Disney+ series. Percy Jackson has added the likes of Adam “Edge” Copeland and Lin-Manuel Miranda to its supporting cast as Greek gods Ares and Hermes, respectively, and has confirmed iconic settings from The Lightning Thief like the Lotus Casino will appear in the show.
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Taking to his blog, Riordan teased that two more set pieces are being constructed.
“Highlights from this week included watching an aquatic set being constructed, complete with a squad of scuba divers to help place the underwater cameras,” Riordan wrote. “And wow, the Underworld set! Amazing stuff as usual from our art and design team.”
That aquatic set could point to Disney+ adapting The Lightning Thief Chapter 17, “We Shop for Water Bed.” That point in the book comes after the Lotus Casino, as Percy and company arrive at the Santa Monica Beach. There, the son of Poseidon is brought into the depths of the Pacific Ocean where he encounters a Nereid. This servant of the sea god gifts Percy three pearls that will help him in his mission to the Underworld.
With that in mind, the Underworld set being built at the same time makes sense, as the trio venture to Hades’ realm in the very next chapter. While the bulk of the Underworld will likely be brought to life with the Volume stage, Riordan’s mention of the “art and design team” having a hand in its look likely indicates that there will also be some physical elements to it.
These elements are coming together in the last lap for Percy Jackson Season 1, as Riordan revealed the crew is now working on the “final episodes.”
“Where we are now: We have begun principal photography for the final episodes of season one,” Riordan wrote. “As I mentioned before, we will be filming through mid-January. Our main heroic trio of Walker, Leah and Aryan just get better and better every episode. It’s incredible to watch. They’re also having a wonderful time working with our many guest stars.”
While the team is on schedule, Riordan did stress that Percy Jackson Season 1 is far from a finished product.
“We have delivered our initial cuts of the first two episodes to our studio partners and are making edits to address some of their excellent notes,” Riordan continued. “Everyone who has seen the cuts so far is incredibly excited, as am I. Again: these cuts are still extremely rough, and no special effects have been added. That process will take many more months per each episode. This week I expect to see the first rough director’s cuts for episodes three and four, though again much work remains before those are even shareable internally with our production partners.”
Even though there is a lengthy waiting game to play, Riordan stressed that fans’ patience will pay off.
“With all those caveats in mind, it’s happening, folks. It’s actually becoming a TV show!” Riordan noted. “This show is more like making a massive, eight-episode movie than a regular TV show, also. Its scope and complexity are truly vast.”
Percy Jackson is expected to arrive on Disney+ in 2024.
