Camp Half-Blood will be reopening at the end of 2023.
Disney+ on Friday announced a premiere date for its Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, based on the beloved (and mega-selling) quintet of novels by Rick Riordan. The series will debut with two episodes on Dec. 20, with subsequent installments rolling out weekly. Disney+ also released a new teaser for the show, which is below.
The timing of the announcement is not random: Aug. 18 is Percy Jackson’s birthday.
Walker Scobell plays the title character, a 12-year-old who learns he’s a demigod — the daughter of a Greek god and a mortal woman. Leah Sava Jeffries and Aryan Simhadri also star as Percy’s friends Annabeth Chase and Grover Underwood.
Unlike the two films based on the books, Riordan was closely involved with the making of the series, writing the first two episodes with fellow executive producer Jon Steinberg (Black Sails, The Old Man). James Bobin directed the first two episodes.
“One thing that we all agreed on was that we should do everything we could to preserve what makes Percy Jackson, Percy Jackson. That’s a combination of modern-day setting, classical mythology, action, and humor,” Riordan told The Hollywood Reporter in June. “One of the ways that that manifested is making sure that we found actors who were an age that was appropriate for the way Percy is at the beginning of the books, so that viewers could watch Percy and Annabeth and Grover grow up on the screen, the way that you read about them growing up from age 12 to 16 in the five books. I’m certainly gratified that we did it that way, because the young actors that we found are fantastic.”
The season will follow the story of the first book in the series, The Lightning Thief. Percy is just coming to terms with his newfound divine powers when the sky god, Zeus (the late Lance Reddick), accuses him of stealing his master lightning bolt. With help from Grover and Annabeth, Percy begins the adventure of a lifetime to find it and restore order to Olympus.
The show’s guest cast also features Lin-Manuel Miranda as Hermes, Megan Mullally as Alecto/Mrs. Dodds, Toby Stephens as Poseidon, Virginia Kull as Sally Jackson, Jason Mantzoukas as Dionysus/Mr. D, Jay Duplass as Hades, Glynn Turman as Chiron/Mr. Brunner, Adam Copeland as Ares, Charlie Bushnell as Luke Castellan, Dior Goodjohn as Clarisse La Rue, Jessica Parker Kennedy as Medusa, Olivea Morton as Nancy Bobofit, Suzanne Cryer as Echidna, Timm Sharp as Gabe Ugliano and Timothy Omundson as Hephaestus.
Steinberg and Dan Shotz are the showrunners (filming wrapped early in the year, well before the current writers and actors strikes). They executive produce with Rick Riordan, Rebecca Riordan, The Gotham Group’s Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Jeremy Bell and D.J. Goldberg, Bert Salke, Bobin, Jim Rowe, Monica Owusu-Breen, Anders Engström and Jet Wilkinson.
Watch the teaser below.
Source: Hollywood
