After almost 18 years since the first book of the Percy Jackson series was published, the series is turning to the big screen this year. The best-selling series by Rick Riordan is expected to keep the series rolling forward. Percy Jackson and the Olympians will be hitting the Disney Plus screen on December 20, 2023, with an eight-episode season. This series follows 12-year-old Percy Jackson (Walker Scobell) who finds out he is a demigod – half human, half god- who is sent to Camp Half-Blood, a summer camp where other children of the Olympians go to train and grow their abilities. When Zeus accuses Percy of stealing his lightning bolt, Percy teams up with his new friends, Grover, a satyr, and Annabeth, daughter of Athena, to travel across America to prevent a war from happening.
Kayli Kinney ‘25 is a huge fan of Rick Riordan and his work and she is most excited for the new TV series to see how “the characters are portrayed and which little quirks they pull in from the original stories.” She also shares that she is “really looking forward to the new series and [she] has very high hopes for it.”
Fans of Percy Jackson are ready to fight if the new series does not exceed expectations. The two Percy Jackson films, starring Logan Lerman and released in 2010 and 2013, were not received well by critics and fans. The movies changed major plot points to make it more appealing to audiences, the characters were not cast age-appropriately, and character dynamics were not portrayed well.
On the other hand, the cast of the new TV series is the same age as the characters in the book. It features a lot of newcomers in the acting world, such as Walker Schobell, a 14-year-old, who recently starred in The Adam Project with Ryan Reynolds, Aryan Simhadri (Cheaper by the Dozen) who plays Grover, and Leah Sava Jeffries (Empire) who plays Annabeth.
Rick Riordan has published 40+ books, with the most recent one Chalice of Gods being published on September 26, 2023, which is a love letter to all the fans. Percy Jackson is trying to have a normal senior year of high school and is trying to head to college. He is told by his father, Poseidon, that he must get recommendation letters from all the Greek Gods to attend “New Rome University” This puts Percy, Annabeth, and Grover on an adventure to track down all the gods and fan out the solutions of this challenge.
The book relates to many original Percy Jackson fans and also fans who are in their senior year of high school like Mary Tropp ‘24. Mary has been reading Rick Riordan books since she was in third grade adding up to 20+ books in her collection. She recently read the Chalice of the Gods and she found it “super nostalgic that Rick Riordan decided to continue the series.” Rick Riordan also announced on October 18th that a seventh book in the Percy Jackson series will be added in September 2024.
Watch the new series on Disney Plus in December with two episodes debuting.
