Percy Jackson Reboot Resurrects the Series

It’s been over 18 years since Rick Riordan released the first book in his five-part book series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. He came about the idea for the book after his son asked him to read a bedtime story involving Greek mythology. Riordan recalled what he knew about Greek mythology, and out of that, his idea of a demi-god middle schooler named Percy Jackson was brought to life. Riordan’s stories are told over the course of five books following an ordinary young boy who is unaware his father is the Greek god Poseidon, and his struggles as he is hunted down by monsters.

In the early 2010s, movie adaptations of the first two books in the series were made, although Riordan was not involved with any part of the movie-making process. Unfortunately for fans, those movies were train wrecks. For years, fans of the book series have complained about the movies’ inaccuracies, sloppy production, poor scripts, one-dimensional characters, and the fact that the movies took strong liberties with the books.

According to Entertainment Weekly, after the first movie came out Riordan said, “I judge them from having read the scripts, because I care most about the story. I certainly have nothing against the very talented actors. Not their fault. I’m just sorry they got dragged into that mess.”

After waiting over a decade to recover from this disaster, Disney+ has now given the beloved book series a second chance at a good book-to-screen adaptation. When they released a teaser trailer last September, fans were ecstatic to finally see the incredible, and accurate details of the books come to life. In the short teaser, we get to see Percy Jackson, played by Walker Scobell, walk into “Camp Half-Blood” for the first time.

In my opinion, the accurate depiction of the camp is due to Disney getting Riordan involved with the production of the TV show. They finished recording just last month, leading fans to believe the release date will be towards the beginning of 2024.

The cast is full of new actors and actresses. Walker Scobell, who recently starred in the movie The Adam Project, plays Percy. The other two protagonists are actress Leah Jeffries as Annabeth Chase, known for her role in the TV show Empire, and Aryan Simhadri (seen in the 2021 movie Spin) as Grover Underwood.

Riordan is very present on social media and updates his fans constantly, so when he recently wrote in his blog that they are writing a script for Season 2, fans were hopeful. This doesn’t mean it’s green-lit, only that if this first season goes according to plan, they will be ready to start on the second season. Based on Riordan’s tweets from the last few months, fans and new viewers alike may be pleasantly astonished with the final product of the new show.