If you haven’t caught up with Season 2 of Percy Jackson and the Olympians yet, you may need to be quick.
With Walker Scobell once again leading the show as its eponymous demigod, Season 2 of Percy Jackson and the Olympians sees the son of Poseidon voyage across the Sea of Monsters with Annabeth Chase (Leah Sava Jeffries) to save their friend Grover (Aryan Simhadri) and Camp Half-Blood.
Credit: Disney+
Much like its first season, it’s received positive reviews from critics and viewers alike – an impressive feat, considering the fact that “The Sea of Monsters” is often cited as the weakest entry in Rick Riordan’s book series.
While we only have a few episodes left of the season, there’s much more to come from Percy and co. as a third season inspired by “The Titan’s Curse” is already in production.
The good news is that Percy Jackson and the Olympians was only ever placed on Hulu as a short-term strategy to broaden that platform’s audience. Disney+ remained its primary home from the outset, meaning viewers can continue following Percy’s journey there — potentially for many more years to come, if all five original novels are adapted.
If Percy Jackson and the Olympians delivers strong viewership, the franchise has plenty of room to grow. Rick Riordan’s books extend into the sequel series “Heroes of Olympus,” a sprawling follow-up that expands the universe and introduces new Roman demigods, making it an obvious candidate for future screen adaptations. There’s also an ongoing sequel trilogy to Percy’s original five adventures, known as “The Senior Year Adventures.”
But concerningly, early performance data suggests the series – often described as the biggest non-Marvel-or-Star Wars project on Disney+ – has struggled to maintain its initial momentum. Viewing figures tracked by Luminate show a sharp drop between seasons of Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
Across its first three weeks, Season 2 logged 483 million minutes streamed in the U.S., compared with 1.3 billion minutes for Season 1 over the same period, translating to roughly 11.2 million estimated views versus 31.5 million previously.
Credit: Disney+
It is also worth noting that, as previously mentioned, Season 2 adapts “The Sea of Monsters,” a chapter in the saga often regarded as the weakest of the original five books.
Compared with later entries, it is shorter, more episodic, and lacks a lot of the major character beats that make the likes of “Battle of the Labyrinth” and “The Last Olympian” so popular with fans, all factors that may have dampened casual viewer interest despite the strength of the broader franchise.
It is difficult to overlook how exposed the series has become amid Disney’s evolving streaming strategy. The company has already shown a willingness to trim costly originals (RIP The Acolyte), and that risk feels sharper after Disney reportedly told Tony Gilroy, the creator of Andor, that “streaming is dead.” If numbers don’t improve, Percy Jackson and the Olympians may be shaped by those shifting priorities.