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Credit: Disney+Disney has reportedly already started work on the second season of Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
While the first attempt at adapting the Percy Jackson series may have been a major flop back in 2010, the second is performing exceedingly well. This time around, its author Rick Riordan is at the helm and the show is produced by Disney, with the first season based on “Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief.”
Reception to the show has been overwhelmingly positive. Its premiere episode reportedly had 13.3 million views in its first six days, making it one of the top five season premieres of 2023. It also has a 96% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes (where the first adaptation currently sits at 49%).
The first season isn’t set to wrap up until January 30, but it seems – unsurprisingly – that Disney is already planning to capitalize on its success with a second outing for Percy (Walker Scobell), Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries), and Grover (Aryan Simhadri).
In the most recent episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Rick Riordan revealed that Disney has started preliminary work on a possible new season.
“We are doing what we can to prepare, on the eventuality that we get the green light,” Riordan confirmed. “We don’t know, it is not official. You know, we’re getting reactions like we’ve had tonight, amazing reactions, from everywhere. And so, if I was the Oracle, I would say the auguries are good, but [crosses fingers].”
Riordan also confirmed what exactly this work entails. “We have started writing what those episodes would look like, sort of doing the series format, talking about the first few episodes, and that’s about as much as we can do right now until we get the go-ahead,” he said. “So, the best way to assure that that goes forward: tell all your friends to tune into Disney+ and watch.”
A second season will most likely be inspired by the second book in the series, “Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters.” This sees Percy and Annabeth embark upon a quest to rescue Grover and find the Golden Fleece to save Camp Half-Blood.
If numbers remain as strong as those of its early episode, Percy Jackson and the Olympians could very well become a saving grace for Disney+. While the platform got off to a strong start upon its launch in 2019, it’s notoriously struggled to retain subscribers with the majority of those who’ve ditched the service citing a lack of variety and new content as their motivation to leave.
Inside the Magic reached out to Disney for comment on a possible season two of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, but did not hear back by the time of publishing.
Percy Jackson currently airs on Disney+ and Hulu every Tuesday until January 30.