Percy Jackson and the Olympians made a seismic splash this past weekend at Disney’s D23 Expo. Author and executive producer Rick Riordan took the D23 stage to introduce the show’s core trio: Walker Scobell (Percy Jackson), Leah Jeffries (Annabeth Chase), and Aryan Simhadri (Grover Underwood). Each of the three shared brief descriptions of their characters before Riordan welcomed the big surprise: a first-look teaser trailer of the Disney+ reboot. While a brief 53 seconds, this footage gave fans a fairly in-depth glimpse at Camp Half-Blood, including the live-action debut of the Greek demigods’ iconic orange t-shirts.
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The surprise trailer took the internet by storm, as “Percy Jackson” quickly became a top trending topic and the teaser accumulated over five million views across social media. After the presentation, Riordan told FlipGeeks that he feels “lucky” to have his book series in the hands of Disney+.
“I think I’m lucky I have Percy Jackson with Disney+ as a TV show,” Riordan said. “It’s the right format to tell a novel in an entire season with the right number of episodes.”
Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 1 will follow the events of The Lightning Thief, the first installment in the five-book series. Unravelling over the course of eight episodes, Riordan believes this format is enough to “do justice” to the 375-page narrative.
“We can do justice to this story, which I think is what my readers have been waiting for for all these years,” Riordan continued. “It’s finally here.”
While it is becoming a reality, fans will still have to wait some time before Percy Jackson makes its way to Disney+. The series is still in the midst of production and is tentatively scheduled to shoot until January 2023. A bulk of the post-production process has been expedited thanks to the usage of a brand-new Industrial Light & Magic StageCraft set, but the on-location shoots will still require CGI touch-ups after filming has concluded.
Regardless of how long it takes for the eight-episode season to be polished to completion, a first-look trailer coming this early is a positive reflection on the production process. Aside from The Batman, which aired its first teaser months before it finished filming, not many projects are given the green light to show off footage this far in advance.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians is in its fourth month of production and is currently without a release date.
What are you most looking forward to from the Percy Jackson series? Let me know on Twitter, @LiamTCrowley!
