Rick Riordan Gives Update on Disney+'s Percy Jackson Trailer

By Liam Crowley

All eyes are on Percy Jackson and the Olympians. While its been the equivalent of a cross country quest to get to this moment, the Disney+ serialized adaptation of Rick Riordan's best-selling novels is already in its third month of production. The show has ventured off of its Vancouver soundstage set, complete with a brand new Industrial Light & Magic Volume, and has begun shooting on location at neighboring areas. Most recently, Percy Jackson found itself at Simon Fraser University where it appears to be filming the iconic Gateway Arch scene from Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.

Despite the packed production schedule, the cast and crew took the time to celebrate the titular character's canonical birthday on August 18th. Disney+ celebrated the occasion by releasing the first official image of the show's main trio, while the Empire State Building got in on the fun by lighting up blue in honor of the son of Poseidon.

Riordan also got in on the festivities, sharing a blog post detailing what Percy's in-universe friends gifted him, how old his famed character has turned, and where he exists in the current timeline. The author also revealed that Percy has a very specific birthday wish this year.

"He is hoping that some day, somebody will make a great TV adaptation of his life story (The signs are favorable)," Riordan wrote.

While fans enjoyed behind-the-scenes images and an aquatic Empire State Building makeover for 8/18, footage from Percy Jackson's freshman season was nowhere to be seen. Riordan addressed this, noting that current clips are very much in a first draft stage.

Sorry, it is still way, way, way too early for that," Riordan said regarding Percy Jackson video footage. "We are just in the stage of dailies and 'rough assemblages' of the early episodes, which are very much like the first drafts of my novels — I would never share them with anyone because they are not ready for prime time! Maybe for his birthday next year, it will be a different story, but that's not a promise."

Riordan's tease of a trailer "maybe" coming next August 18th likely means that Percy Jackson won't begin streaming for quite some time. This aligns with a previous update from Riordan, where he speculated that the "most likely air date" would be in "early 2024."

"Given all this, I think the most likely air date will probably be early 2024. Again, that's just me guessing," Riordan wrote earlier this year (h/t Deadline). "The actual release dates are determined by the studio and the streaming service, and have to take in hundreds of other factors like the release schedule for all Disney+ shows, timing for publicity, etc."

That said, let's imagine a hypothetical world where the first Percy Jackson trailer arrives on August 18th, 2023. Marketing windows for streaming shows, specifically on Disney+, have proved to be significantly shorter than theatrical campaigns. WandaVision debuted its first teaser on September 20th, 2020, roughly four months before it premiered. Recent releases like Obi-Wan Kenobi have tightened things even further, dropping its first footage just two and a half months before debuting on Disney+.

All that is to say that even if the first Percy Jackson trailer doesn't come until next summer, there is every possibility that the show itself could begin streaming in Winter 2023. Either that, or it could kick off 2024 as Riordan previously guessed.

For now, Percy Jackson has to finish shooting. The series is making impressive progress but is still scheduled to shoot until next January. Even though it has already shot "through chapter nine" of The Lightning Thief, there's still an entire quest to get through.

If fans can hold their breath as well as Percy does, it will be Camp Half-Blood season soon enough. Luckily, there won't be any freezing time as Kronos isn't in the picture. Yet.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians is currently filming.

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