[This story contains spoilers for the first two episodes of Percy Jackson and the Olympians on Disney+.]
To say that devoted readers of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians books have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Disney+ collection based mostly on them can be a Titan-sized understatement. A decade-plus after a pair of films based mostly on Rick Riordan‘s best-selling novels left a nasty style with followers (and the writer), the collection, which Riordan co-created and govt produces, started streaming Tuesday evening.
Disney+ additionally moved up the premiere by just a few hours, dropping the primary two episodes at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT Tuesday — a day earlier than the present’s beforehand scheduled debut. (The primary episode will even stream on Hulu by way of the tip of January.)
The present wasted little time in entering into the story: By the tip of the primary episode, Percy (Walker Scobell) had been kicked out of college, discovered he’s the son of a Greek god and a mortal girl (Virginia Kull performs Percy’s mom), and battled a minotaur earlier than arriving at Camp Half-Blood, the house away from residence for younger demigods.
As for the second episode? Simply Percy getting acclimated to camp, making an attempt to know why his greatest good friend, Grover (Aryan Simhadri), hadn’t stated something about Percy’s demigod standing, dealing with down the youngsters from the Ares cabin and attending to know Annabeth Chase (Leah Sava Jeffries) proper earlier than getting thrown into a really intense recreation of seize the flag.
The story tracks fairly faithfully with the early chapters of The Lightning Thief, the primary ebook within the collection and the supply materials for the season — which, after all, is by design. As co-creator and co-showrunner Jonathan Steinberg put it to The Hollywood Reporter, having Riordan closely concerned within the collection was a blessing.
“It wouldn’t actually be doable another manner. Not solely is the story so private to Rick and [wife and producing partner] Becky and their sons and their household, however the relationship between Rick and the followers is admittedly particular,” Steinberg stated. “It’s a testomony to how private the story that he created is and the way deeply it impacts these people who they hook up with him immediately. We felt actually lucky to have the ability to construct this factor with the steerage of the individuals who had the one standing, actually, to make determinations about what belongs in and what belongs out. What’s Percy Jackson and what’s not Percy Jackson.”
THR spoke individually with Steinberg and co-showrunner Dan Shotz and with Rick and Becky Riordan about constructing the present’s world.
You’ve spoken about the logistics of getting the TV collection off the bottom earlier than, however what conversations did you’ve amongst yourselves about adapting the books?
BECKY RIORDAN It was our entire household. And I believe if we had the youngsters right here, they might let you know a distinct factor most likely than us. They’d lots of trepidation about their mother and pa going again and revisiting this. Rick and I had totally different conversations — what does this imply for us? How do we alter the narrative? How will we make the dynamic work?
RICK RIORDAN We needed to do type of price profit evaluation, simply on a household stage: Is that this price it? This type of emotional weight of taking up a challenge this huge at this level in our life.
Jon and Dan, how a lot do you know of the books earlier than signing on to this?
JONATHAN STEINBERG A good quantity. A few years earlier than the cellphone name got here, we really explored it and tried to trace down what was occurring with the property. I believe it had type of gotten misplaced within the [Disney-20th Century Fox] merger, the place the rights sate, and we didn’t discover out till later that a few of it was simply that Rick and Becky weren’t fairly prepared to interact with one other adaptation. We had carried out a number of the homework and simply gave up on it when it didn’t look like it was going to occur. So when the cellphone name got here again in, it felt like destiny slightly bit. We had we gone looking for it, after which after which it confirmed up at our doorstep.
What have been your first conversations like about turning the books right into a collection?
DAN SHOTZ After we began with them, it was through the COVID bubble. So we actually had time to take a seat there on Zoom collectively, simply the 4 of us, and actually discuss concerning the particulars of the place this got here from and what’s most essential to them. We additionally received to look at Rick discover one thing he wrote 20 years in the past that he needed to do to this story, stuff that he needed to re-evaluate. That turned a extremely enjoyable course of.
Leah Sava Jeffries as Annabeth
Disney/David Bukach
Rick, you’re a credited author on the primary two episodes, however what was your stage of involvement on the remainder of the season?
RICK RIORDAN I used to be concerned in each writers room, I learn each draft of each script, we gave notes on the whole lot. So we have been very intimately concerned with each single episode. My huge revelation was that that is very a lot a staff sport. Writing for tv could be very totally different than me sitting alone in my workplace and simply making up a novel, the place the one one who would learn it’s most likely Becky, so she may give me suggestions. With a TV present, you’re all pitching in. It’s not the imaginative and prescient of anyone particular person. It’s a collaborative imaginative and prescient. That was a extremely, actually eye-opening expertise for me. I loved studying about that, and I believe I discovered quite a bit from it.
BECKY RIORDAN It makes [the show] higher to have all these totally different opinions and all these totally different concepts and private experiences all come and make the story even richer than it’s on the web page.
I watched the primary two episodes with my youngsters, and one of many issues they picked up on was Percy being rather less sarcastic than he’s on the web page, the place the story is advised all by way of his eyes. What did it’s important to change in scripting this character for a distinct medium?
BECKY RIORDAN You generally is a lot extra sarcastic in your head than you’d be in actual life. We may have made a TV present like that, however I believe it could have been very farcical, and it could be tough to inform the intense a part of the story. So we needed to stability all these issues collectively.
RICK RIORDAN I believe that’s a good way to place it. It’s only a matter of readjusting the story to a format that’s not fully first-person inner monologue. However preserve watching — the sarcasm is there.
Dan and Jon, you’ve written completely on reveals geared toward adults earlier than this. Does your strategy change in any respect when you realize the viewers goes to incorporate lots of youngsters and households?
STEINBERG Lower than you’d assume. It’s slightly little bit of a distinct train within the sense that the present actually does have to work in case you’re 14 and in case you’re 9. However to me, that was extra about pacing and extra about ensuring that it labored for them, and fewer about writing all the way down to an viewers or censoring something. I believe we desperately needed for this present to be for everyone. And that meant all the best way all the way down to my 7-year-old son — the hope was that it could be slightly too scary for him, however not all the best way. We received to a spot the place the storytelling and the emotional experiences have been simply far more attention-grabbing to me than than making an attempt to push something that might be one thing [kids] couldn’t have a look at.
Becky and Rick, I’m curious in seeing the completed product, have been there any units or explicit moments that you just noticed and actually thought, “Sure — that is what I imagined how this story would look”?
BECKY RIORDAN [Production designer] Dan Hennah actually dived into the ebook and was capable of carry all of it out — Olympus, the underworld, Camp Half-Blood. All of it feels so actual.
RICK RIORDAN All of these are nice, and there’s a water trip in one of many later episodes that’s notably effectively carried out. I believe it’s vibrant and thrilling — and never really the best way I envisioned it. If something, it’s higher, as a result of it’s extra vivid than I had imagined it to be.
Have you ever carried out any work on a possible second season but?
STEINBERG Conversations. There are individuals having ideas and spending a while imagining what one thing would appear to be. However nothing official.
RICK RIORDAN I believe everyone’s simply ready to see the way it does, and I believe that may inform lots of the conversations. The final hope among the many entire staff and the studio and [Disney+] is that we’re hoping that it’s an enormous hit and we’ll be capable of do extra.
Interviews edited and condensed.
