Calling all my fellow Half-bloods! This winter Rick Riordan’s award winning series, “Percy Jackson and the Olympians,” is being brought to life on Disney+ by Walker Scobell, Leah Jeffries, Aryan Simhadri, and many more!
How, Where, What, and When to Watch: The Basics
The two-episode premiere is set to air on December 20th only on Disney+. The first season consists of 8 episodes and the titles are as following:
- “I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher”
- “I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom”
- “We Visit the Garden Gnome Emporium”
- “I Plunge to My Death”
- “A God Buys Us Cheeseburgers”
- “We Take a Zebra to Vegas”
- “We Find Out the Truth, Sort Of”
- “The Prophecy Comes True”
If you’re a big Percy fan reading this, hopefully you recognize some of these episode titles as some of your favorite moments from the original series. I know I did! If not, some titles may sound just a tad bit concerning. Just a tad.
The Cast of Camp Half-Blood
Give a warm welcome to the golden trio themselves: Leah Jeffries as Annabeth Chase, Aryan Simhardi as Grover Underwood, and Walker Scobell as the one and only Percy Jackson! While the entire cast list hasn’t been fully released quite yet, the roles that have already been revealed have fans beyond excited! In addition to our main trio, Rick Riordan introduces Lin Manuel Miranda as Hermes, Glynn Turman as Chiron, Lance Reddick as Zeus, Charlie Bushnell as Luke Castellan, Dior Goodjohn as Clarisse Rue, and many more.
The actors and actresses portraying the Demigod campers of the show are all fairly young with most having this series as their first mainstream project. An additional key factor to this is that Disney held an open casting call for this series, meaning that anyone could audition. There was no need for the actors to already have an agent or really even any past professional experience in the industry, so most of them didn’t. However, there is one exception- Walker Scobell. Fans were extremely happy to recognize Walker from “The Adam Project,” where Scobell co-starred with Ryan Reynolds. With all the excitement from fans, it’s more than clear that Walker Scobell can be trusted with the quest of bringing Percy to life.
Unfortunately, not all of the series castings have garnered such a positive reaction from the media. Although the feedback was mainly positive, both Leah Jeffries (Annabeth Chase) and Aryan Simhardi (Grover Underwood) did receive some heavy backlash since the announcement of their roles. The reason? Well, many were enraged that Leah Jeffries, an African American actress, is playing Annabeth Chase who is described in the books to have blonde hair, stormy gray eyes, and tanned skin. Additionally, Aryan Simhadri, who is of South Asian descent, also received some backlash regarding his role as Grover, as he was previously primarily thought of as white by many fans. Well, at least half of him was human and not a goat. The author/creator of both the books and the show, Rick Riordan, has spoken out on his website concerning the situation: “as the author, that I was looking for the best actors to inhabit and bring to life the personalities of these characters, and that physical appearance was secondary for me.” In the post, Riordan goes into more detail, defending his casting choices and reiterates the fact that he and Disney announced very early on that they’d be following Disney’s policy on non-discrimination when it came to casting. You can read Riordan’s post here. He discusses the idea of canonically white characters being played by people of color in Hollywood in more depth. I definitely recommend reading his message-even if you aren’t interested in watching.
The Past of Percy Jackson
Percy Jackson was first introduced to the world in June of 2005, when The Lightning Thief first hit shelves. However, since then, there have been numerous live action adaptations of his story prior to the series releasing this year.
The first adaptation (and so far favorite) we will be discussing is The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical. You guessed it! Yup, a musical based on the first book of the series. I actually had the privilege of seeing this off-Broadway production sometime in middle school on a trip to NYC. From what I remember, I really loved it. The soundtrack is really amazing, and the actors brought my favorite book characters to life in a fun way that could only be produced by musical theater. The musical stayed true to the original plot, and fans all around the world love it. The playbook is produced in theaters all around the US and (prior to this show) is definitely the fan favorite of all other live-action Percy adaptations!
But wait… weren’t there also two live action Hollywood movies also created? Why on earth would fans prefer a musical to an actual movie?
So glad you asked (not).
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The first live adaptation of Percy Jackson is not something often talked about among the PJO fanbase. Mainly because we’d all rather forget about it. There were two movies released during this era, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief and Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Sea of Monsters. These were meant to be adaptations of the first books in the series. Oh, but wait… there were five books in the original series, what happened to the last three? The third book never became a film in this franchise because the first two SUCKED. There were many problems with the original movies from the actors being double the ages of the characters they were portraying, to complete changes in the plot that frankly just made no sense. I digress.
The point is that many fans were disappointed with this adaptation, and rightfully so. Logan Lerman, who portrayed Percy Jackson in the original movies, tweeted out to Walker “Excited to see this! Hope [the new show] gets the adaptation the books deserve,” after his role of Percy was announced. Even Uncle Rick had something to say: “it’s my life’s work going through a meat grinder when I pleaded with them not to do it. So yeah. But it’s fine. All fine. We’re gonna fix it soon.” And fixing it, they are.
A Final Note from a Fan
It honestly feels surreal that I’m even writing an article on this topic right now. I still remember the first time I heard the announcement for the new series. I was in 7th grade and, ironically enough, I was working on a history project that actually involved creating a model of Camp Half-Blood. Growing up, I was always jealous of Harry Potter fans because they were able to get such good movie adaptations—not to mention two whole theme parks centered around said movies. “Excited” could not even describe what I was feeling when I found out about this series. As mentioned before, I was not a huge fan of the original movies…
As you could probably tell, I’ve been a fan of the Percy Jackson series since elementary school and those books had such a huge impact on my childhood. They were the first “real” books that I started reading. I had a Percy Jackson themed birthday party (lots of blue food), heaps of Camp Half-Blood merch, went as Thalia Grace for Halloween one year, and I even named my dog after a character in the sequel series. The point is, I was OBSESSED, but as time went on, I of course started to grow out of it. However, seeing this series come to screens and being able to follow along on the journey through Instagram updates made 10-year-old me unbelievably happy. I get to see the characters that I grew up with be brought to life by amazing and talented actors and actresses who get to be the face of Percy Jackson for the new generation of Demigods. I’m so beyond grateful that this show was able to bring back mine and so many others’ love for the characters and series. I hope all of the Half-Bloods reading this enjoy the premiere with a large stack of blue pancakes—cooked Sally Jackson style of course. Remember to stay safe from any monsters while watching and have fun!
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