The house of mouse is welcoming Rick Riordan’s fantastical world of Greek mythology into its arsenal. Disney+ has been developing a serialized adaptation of Percy Jackson and the Olympians since April 2020, with progress picking up significant momentum in 2022. Walker Scobell (The Adam Project) was cast as the titular hero shortly before the show embarked on its eight-month production journey in Vancouver. As Percy Jackson begins to wrap its first season’s shoot, Riordan and company have been optimistic about the future of the series, but have emphasized that its debut alone is still a ways away.
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Even though that premiere date likely won’t come until 2024, Riordan is still enamored with what he’s seeing firsthand.
“It’s hard to have any distance at the moment, since we are in the middle of everything, but it’s incredible to see the first season come together and bring to life so many scenes and characters that were never depicted in the movie,” Riordan wrote on GoodReads. “I actually just watched some dailies (raw footage) with Percy standing in the water ready to fight, and our hero Walker Scobell does an amazing job!”
Riordan is alluding to 2010’s Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, a film adaptation of the demigod’s first book. While the Logan Lerman-led flick brought fan-favorite moments like the Minotaur fight and Lotus Casino showdown to life, plenty of key moments from The Lightning Thief were left on the cutting room floor. Disney+’s adaptation promises to be more true to the source material, with moments like the St. Louis Arch chaos and Percy’s battle with Ares already confirmed to be part of the show.
Shooting these ambitious scenes is only half the battle, as Riordan stressed that post-production polishing will be extensive.
“We have a long way to go still with post-production editing,” Riordan continued. “But we should be finishing principle photography in a couple of weeks, which is a huge milestone.”
While he had no involvement in the past film adaptations, Riordan’s fingerprints are all over this upcoming serialized reboot. The acclaimed author serves as an executive producer, which has included the responsibility of screenwriting.
“It’s very, very different. Script writing is more of a team sport, at least the script-writing that I have been part of so far,” Riordan detailed. “Everything you will see is something created by many different minds working together and doing their best to translate the story to screen.”
These scripts are Riordan’s brainchildren yes, but he has a village behind him. Writers like Jonathan Steinberg (See) are assisting with the scripts’ development.
“I am definitely part of the team, but I cannot take full credit for anything we are writing. I’ve had a lot of help and learned a lot, but I’m still learning,” Riordan added. “For example, if you have a character say three sentences in a book, it doesn’t feel very long, usually. If you ask a character to say three sentences in a script, it can feel like a huge speech, so you have to pick and choose lines with care!”
Percy Jackson and the Olympians is expected to wrap production this month.
