Disney Is Quietly Shelving Its Old Percy Jackson Strategy in Season 3

It’s officially the year for Greek mythology! After Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, the next item on the docket for fans of ancient myth is Percy Jackson & The Olympians, which returns later this year for its third season. The new season premieres on November 20 and adapts the events of Rick Riordan’s The Titan’s Curse.

This is an extremely exciting moment for fans of the Percy Jackson franchise, which hasn’t always fared well in live-action adaptations. The first two seasons of the Disney+ series have been widely received by critics and fans so far, but the third marks an entirely new era for the franchise.

Percy Jackson & The Olympians Is Officially in Uncharted Waters

With Season 3, Percy Jackson & The Olympians officially surpasses where the movies left off. Years before the Disney+ series, Rick Riordan’s iconic Greek mythology series was originally adapted as a film franchise starring Logan Lerman as the titular demigod, Percy Jackson.

The films began in 2010 with Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, which was largely panned by anyone who had read the books for its wild unfaithfulness to the source material and blatant aspirations to be the next Harry Potter. Despite its negative reviews, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief made $226 million at the box office, earning it the right to continue with a sequel.

Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters hit theaters in 2013, adapting Riordan’s novel of the same name. Like its predecessor, the movie was widely disliked by fans. Still, it made over $200 million at the box office, which should have been enough to warrant another sequel based on The Titan’s Curse.

However, at this point, it had become clear to everyone involved that the film franchise would no longer receive support from fans or from Riordan, who publicly criticized its lack of faithfulness to his books. The third Percy Jackson film was never officially scrapped but was repeatedly pushed back until it fell off Disney’s slate entirely.

No one mourned the silent demise of the film franchise, nor its replacement by the Disney+ series a decade later. For the past two seasons, Percy Jackson & The Olympians has explored familiar territory. The first season adapts the events of The Lightning Thief, fixing many of the concerns with the original film adaptation.

The second season does likewise with Sea of Monsters, far surpassing the previous film. Now, however, the series kicks into full gear as it becomes the first franchise to ever adapt The Titan’s Curse in live-action. From now on, anything in the Percy Jackson series is being adapted from the books for the first time.

Even the much better-received stage musical only ever adapted the events of The Lightning Thief. The movies never got past Sea of Monsters. Now, the series has a chance to carve out its own unique place in the Percy Jackson fandom, as the only adaptation to get this far. This also officially makes Percy Jackson & The Olympians the most successful adaptation of the books as the series passes the halfway mark of Rick Riordan’s original series.

Will Percy Jackson & The Olympians Get a Season 4?

With the recent release of the first Percy Jackson & The Olympians Season 3 teaser ahead of the premiere this November, fans are anxious for any news on a potential fourth season. The next book in Rick Riordan’s series is The Battle of the Labyrinth, which follows Percy Jackson and his friends as they venture into Daedalus’s titular maze while the forces of Kronos work against them.

It is the most action-packed of the first four books, and would be thrilling to see play out in the Disney+ series. Surprisingly, Disney has yet to officially greenlight the series for a fourth season. This has led to some concern from fans, especially since Season 3 had begun filming by the time Season 2 premiered.

If Season 4 does happen, it most likely won’t come in 2027, breaking the show’s refreshing annual release cycle. This would only change if production began in the next few weeks. Many fans were hoping for news about Percy Jackson & The Olympians Season 4 at San Diego Comic-Con this year, but the show’s panel came and went without any official word on a continuation.

Nevertheless, they shouldn’t fret too much considering the show’s strong streaming numbers. Percy Jackson‘s first two seasons outpaced even entries from major franchises like the MCU and Star Wars on Disney+. This should give Disney more than enough confidence in the franchise to at least finish adapting Rick Riordan’s original Percy Jackson book series.

Hopefully, a fourth-season renewal is in the very near future for Percy Jackson & The Olympians. This announcement would make it almost certain that Disney+ will continue its adaptation through The Last Olympian, concluding the Half-Blood Chronicles.

How Long Will Percy Jackson & the Olympians Go?

Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 2 — Leah Sava Jeffries

If Disney continues to put its faith in the series, Percy Jackson & The Olympians has enough material for at least five seasons. There are five books in Rick Riordan’s original series. The fourth, The Battle of the Labyrinth, would comprise the show’s potential fourth season, while the fifth, The Last Olympian, would depict Percy Jackson and Camp Half-Blood’s final battle against Kronos and the Titans.

However, there is room to expand the franchise beyond these five seasons. Over the last two decades, Rick Riordan has built a massive literary universe consisting of dozens of books, multiple series, and numerous ancient pantheons. Any of these books would make for terrific live-action adaptations that could work together as Disney+’s next shared universe.

The natural expansion from Percy Jackson & The Olympians would be an adaptation of Heroes of Olympus. This five-book series is a direct sequel to the “Half-Blood Chronicles,” following seven demigods from the Greek and Roman pantheons as they work to prevent a war between their two camps.

Working against them is the primordial Earth goddess Gaea and her legions of giants, each manufactured to unseat one of the Olympian gods. This could even be followed by an adaptation of The Trials of Apollo, another pentalogy. Alternatively, Disney+ could adapt one of Riordan’s several spin-off series dealing with other pantheons.

The Kane Chronicles is a trilogy focusing on the Egyptians gods and the magicians who serve them, like Carter and Sadie Kane. At different times, the Kanes have even crossed paths with the heroes of Camp Half-Blood, making room for live-action crossovers at some point in the future.

The Magnus Chase series similarly follows the titular demigod, a cousin of Annabeth Chase, as he maneuvers through the Norse pantheon, including the likes of Thor, Odin, and Loki. All this isn’t even to mention the more recent Percy Jackson books, the adventures of Nico diAngelo, or the numerous stories from up-and-coming authors with whom Rick Riordan has partnered.

There is even another series on the horizon focused entirely on Camp Half-Blood. In short, there is enough material for dozens of seasons of Percy Jackson & The Olympians and multiple spin-offs. For now, however, Disney seems focused on its upcoming adaptation of The Titan’s Curse.

Percy Jackson & The Olympians Season 3 will premiere on November 20, exclusively on Disney+.