"Percy Jackson and the Olympians" Series Premiere Moves Up

Percy Jackson’s quest has begun a little sooner than anticipated. 

The TV adaptation of Rick Riordan’s book series “Percy Jackson and The Olympians” has launched on Disney+ and Hulu early, one night ahead of its December 20 premiere.

The first two episodes, which was initially scheduled to begin streaming early Wednesday, instead dropped at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT Tuesday. 

Last week, it was announced that the first episode of the series would debut on Hulu as well as Disney+ and would remain streaming through January 31. New episodes will drop weekly on Disney+ until the Season 1 finale.

“We’re so grateful for the amazing and dedicated Percy Jackson fans who have enthusiastically supported this project from the very beginning,” said Pamela Levine, head of marketing at Disney Branded Television and National Geographic Content. “They’ve been counting down the days, and as a special thank you, we wanted to let our fans enjoy the first two episodes a bit earlier than expected.”

The series has been long-awaited within the Percy Jackson fanbase. Riordan published the first of five “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” books in 2005.

The book series consists of five novels, including “The Lightning Thief”, “The Sea of Monsters”, “The Titan’s Curse”, “The Battle of the Labyrinth”, and “The Last Olympian”. 

There were also several spin-offs as well as a sequel book series known as “Heroes of Olympus” that followed a new cast of main characters and returning favorites from the first books. 

20th Century Fox adapted the first two books into movies in 2010 and 2013, but plot changes and Riordan’s disdain for the movies rendered them unpopular. The final three books of the series have never made it to the screen.

By contrast, Riordan is a writer and executive producer on the Disney+ series, for which the intention is to release five seasons based on the five books.

The series adaptation was ordered by Disney back in January 2022 and is targeted toward a general audience, especially tweens, teens, and young adults. 

“Percy Jackson and the Olympians” is centered around a 12-year-old demigod, Percy Jackson, who learns of his supernatural powers when the sky god Zeus accuses him of stealing his master lightning bolt. Now Percy must trek across America to find it and restore order to Olympus.

The upcoming series is set to adapt the first novel of the book series “The Lightning Thief”, which sees Percy traveling across America with his friends to clear his name and return order to Mount Olympus after he is accused of stealing Zeus’s powerful master lightning bolt — all the while coming to terms with his newly learned demi-god status.

The cast features Walker Sobell as Percy, Aryan Simhadri as Grover, Leah Sava Jeffries as Annabeth, Virginia Kull as Sally Jackson, Glynn Turman as Chiron, Jason Mantzoukas as Dionysus, Megan Mullally as Alecto, and Timm Sharp as Percy’s stepfather Gabe Ugliano.

The project is produced by 20th Television and scripted by Rick Riordan, who wrote the original book series, which has more than 180M copies, and Jon Steinberg. The duo will write the pilot with James Bobin directing. The trio will also serve as executive producers. Steinberg will oversee the series with his producing partner Dan Shotz. Steinberg and Shotz serve as executive producers.

Executive producers also include Bobin, Rick Riordan, Rebecca Riordan, Bert Salke, the former Touchstone Television President who originally put the project into development, Monica Owusu-Breen, Jim Rowe, and Gotham Group’s Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Jeremy Bell, and D.J. Goldberg.