Percy Jackson and the Olympians is coming to Disney Plus on Wednesday, December 20 — and excitement is building over the eight-part adaptation of the much-loved fantasy novels.
The series follows 12-year-old Perseus "Percy" Jackson (Walker Scobell) as he discovers that his estranged father is a Greek god and he is sent to Camp Half-Blood, a sanctuary for the offspring of gods and mortals. But after being accused of stealing Zeus's (the late Lance Reddick, in his final TV role) lightning bolt, Percy and his friends Grover Underwood (Aryan Simhadri) and Annabeth Chase (Leah Sava Jeffries) set out on a perilous mission to retrieve it.
We caught up with Rick Riordan, author of the original books and the co-creator and executive producer of the series, and Rebecca Riordan, executive producer, to find out more about what's in store including an amazing fight between Percy and the God of War Ares...
Rick and Rebecca Riordan interview for Percy Jackson And The Olympians
What has the process of bringing Percy Jackson to TV been like for both of you?
Rick: "It's been really informative! I didn't know much about it, I don't think either of us really knew much about how a TV show is produced, and I certainly have a lot more respect for everyone involved and how much work it is! Now I've been through it, it seems to me a miracle that anything is ever made, because so many things have to go just right, and so many people have to contribute 100% of their effort to making it happen."
Becky: "It's a team sport, is what it is. We have to respect other people's creative vision — it can't just all be about us and what we think. It's really fun to get to see what other people think of the books, what they think is important, what resonates with them."
Rick, you wrote scripts for the TV series — how did that compare to writing the books? Was it a vastly different experience?
Rick: "Night and day! As Becky said, it's a team sport, whereas when I'm writing a novel, it really is just me: I make up the story and then send it to my editor very late in the process, and she gives me good feedback. Becky of course will be my first reader and give me feedback, but except for that, it's basically just me. With TV, dozens of people are weighing in on everything."
Becky: "And the script isn't the end product on TV, at all."
Rick: "Yes, that's the other thing it took me a while to realise! This seems obvious now, but the script is only ever a means to an end, it's never a finished product. The script is changing up until the very moment it's filmed, and sometimes even afterwards, so it's much more fluid and collaborative than writing a book, but it was fascinating to see how something like that is created from start to finish."
Why did a TV series feel like the right medium for the Percy Jackson stories?
Rick: "I think TV gives you a broader canvas to translate more of the book into the episodes. With a feature film, even the massive feature films that we're getting these days, it's still much less time, so you sometimes have to make very painful cuts and changes to translate the story into that format. With a whole season of TV, it felt to me that it was the right amount of time to take one novel and adapt it pretty faithfully."
By the same token, were you able to expand on certain elements through the TV series?
Becky: "Definitely the relationships between the kids — getting to see Grover's development over time, and you'll see how Percy develops as a hero towards the end. It's just incredible, he's constantly challenged throughout the whole season."
Rick: "I think it was also really interesting to be able to use Sally Jackson, his mother, in that first episode — there's a lot more background in the TV show than there is in the book itself because it was important that we try to make the viewers care about her. Not to spoil anything, but people who know the books know that we'll see her again, but it was nice to be able to dig into their relationship as a family a little bit more."
Becky: "She is so important to the fans. To a lot of them, she's like the mother they need — especially the more adult fans, I think!"
How much of a challenge was it to find the right actors to play the leads?
Rick: "It's a heavy lift for any young actor to become the lead in a TV show, because they are very involved, it's a lot of time."
Becky: "We were warned — 'don't you want to age up these characters so we can make a TV show that doesn't take so long to film, and you'll have actors that have a little more stamina and breadth?' But it has been so amazing to have chosen these kids — actually, it feels like they chose us, right? They bring so much talent to the show, Walker Scobell especially is amazing. He was born for this role."
Rick: "It's so funny, one of the comments I remember from filming was when one of our directors had just finished filming with the kids, and said 'now I understand what it's like to work with adults' because they were so professional, focused and dedicated! They've just been amazing."
Were there any scenes in the adaptation that really resonated with you?
Rick: "Oh wow, there's a lot. The only challenge is choosing!"
Becky: "Some of my favourite scenes are things we cut."
Rick: "Oh, that's always painful, yeah."
Becky: "Because you don't always have time for everything, sometimes you just have to squeeze it as much as you can to get it all functioning together properly."
Rick: "It's the same with writing books too — I've written some scenes that just didn't work, or they weren't quite right, or they made it too long. It's painful to cut material that's really fun, but you have to! But of the scenes that viewers will see, readers of the book will be aware that at one point there's a fight against the God of War, Ares, which has never been adapted for the screen before. I know Walker Scobell was excited all season long to get to that one scene, and he was right to be because it's so spectacular. Adam Copeland was amazing as Ares!"
Is there a particular character that you love writing for?
Rick: "Oh gosh, I have to say Grover Underwood, our satyr, played by Aryan Simhadri. I've always loved writing his character, and now when I'm writing books with Grover, I hear Aryan's voice in my head because he's so perfect in that role that it influences the way I write. But it was definitely a positive influence — the TV show affects the books as much as the other way round!"
- Percy Jackson And The Olympians launches on Disney+ from Wednesday December 20
