All eyes, singular and plural, are on Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
The success story of Rick Riordan’s young adult spin on Greek mythology is nothing short of romantic. What began as a bedtime story for his son evolved into a pentalogy of best-selling novels, capturing the imagination of readers worldwide but struggling to translate to the big screen.
A pair of mixed-at-best reviewed feature films with just-about breaking even box office returns left Percy Jackson collecting dust in 20th Century Fox’s toybox until Disney acquired the studio in 2019. Riordan, who was ignored outright through the feature films’ creative processes, personally laid out his pitch to the House of Mouse. With the newly-launched Disney+ hungry for tentpole live-action shows, Riordan saw an opportunity for disruption.
The wins stacked up from there. Percy Jackson and the Olympians received the green light in Spring 2020, rolled cameras by Summer 2022, and arrived on Disney+ in Winter 2023. By the end of 2024, the eight-episode first season amassed over three billion viewing minutes, making it the most-streamed series on the platform and surpassing blockbuster titles from the worlds of Marvel and Star Wars. The underdog defied the odds and won a championship. Now, Percy Jackson and the Olympians attempts to establish its dynasty.
Join ScreenRant as we venture through The Mist and into Percy Jackson and the Olympians season 2, exploring how the show’s significant production shift positions it to be a decade-defining appointment television program. Host Liam Crowley catches up with Riordan and stars Walker Scobell, Leah Jeffries, Aryan Simhadri, Charlie Bushnell, Dior Goodjohn, and Daniel Diemer in this ScreenRant cover story, featuring never-been-seen new imagery and exclusive interviews.
Returning To The Percy Jackson Set Was Its Own Odyssey
Inside Percy Jackson Season 2’s Production: How the Cast Returned to a Bigger, Higher-Stakes Set
Sophomore year at Camp Half-Blood commenced its syllabus week just four months after Percy returned the Master Bolt to Zeus on Mount Olympus, but in production time, it had been two years since the mortal members of the ensemble first assembled in Vancouver.
Series frontman Walker Scobell admitted to “not really” being more creatively confident upon entering season 2. “Only because so much time had passed between season 1 and 2. It almost feels like a second season 1. It’s so different, and I’m so different than I was. It makes me nervous. I didn’t know if I was going to capture it all the same way.”
Scobell’s initial nerves were shared by Aryan Simhadri, who plays Percy’s best friend and satyr protector Grover Underwood. Simhadri saw a parallel between the exponential increase in the fictionalized stakes on screen and the real-world stakes behind the scenes.
They’ve got a summer at camp under their belts. They’ve now been exposed to this world. They realize how real the stakes are. That’s what it feels like for us filming.
With the audience response to season 1 showing Disney that it had a potential ground-zero franchise on its hands, more studio eyeballs turned their attention to season 2 production. Simhadri recalled the added pressure of executives joining them on location for filming, but explained that, “If anything, it just made everyone here more passionate. It made all of us realize how many people we want to make happy.”
Author Rick Riordan, who serves as an executive producer on the series, noted he is “still wrapping [his] mind around the success of the books from 20 years ago.” He shared triumphantly, “I realized that it had done well when I saw the faces of all our partners at Disney+ and at 20th TV. I saw this light in their eyes, the way they were grinning when we did Zooms.“
Playing With Practical Effects In The Sea Of Monsters
Why Percy Jackson Season 2 Shifted to Practical Sets for Its Sea of Monsters Story
While the system that showrunners Dan Shotz and Jonathan Steinberg put in place for season 1’s adaptation of The Lightning Thief worked, there was an ambition to go bigger for the second go-around.
The Sea of Monsters, the 270-page story that Percy Jackson and the Olympians is adapting for season 2, takes the ensemble of demigods into the Bermuda Triangle for an oceanic adventure as large as the imagination allows. Season 1 incorporated ILM’s revolutionary The Volume to digitally create backdrops for mythological locations like Mount Olympus and The Underworld, but nothing beats going practical.
Daniel Diemer, who plays Tyson, revealed that season 2’s “real locations” evoked his childhood love of fantasy films like The Lord of the Rings. “On green screens of any kind, it can look gorgeous,” he demurred. “But it feels smaller to me automatically. I feel like audiences can usually tell that there’s a manufactured element to it. To be on location and be on these built sets, it feels like you’re on the adventure with Percy and the gang.”
The two most consistent set pieces of season 2 exist in the seas: antagonist Luke’s Princess Andromeda yacht, which actor Charlie Bushnell praised for its “attention to detail,” and quest leader Clarisse La Rue’s The Ironclad warship, which actress Dior Goodjohn applauded for feeling “so real.”
That practicality goes beyond the set pieces, too. “Daniel was lit on fire three times. That helps me get into it. Sometimes I’ll request it too just because,” Scobell joked. “It’s funny to watch him on fire,” he laughed.
Emphasizing the practical allowed Scobell to enhance “even just the little things,” but as Goodjohn pointed out, this change comes with an added financial pressure. “The shots are expensive. Everyone’s always nervous. ‘Okay, are we going to get it? Are we going to get it?’”
Feeling that kind of nervous energy from everyone of “Let’s do it right” fed so well into the stakes and the intensity of the actual scenes that we shot on The Ironclad. When it comes to telling the story through Clarisse’s perspective, it felt right as we were doing it. It was really, really amazing.
Grover’s Distress Call Shapes Percy Jackson Season 2
Grover’s Expanded Role: Why His Season 2 Arc Is Key to Percy Jackson’s Story
As the stages that they play on evolve, one thing that has remained the same is Percy Jackson and the Olympians’ core trio. Scobell, Simhadri, and Leah Jeffries all reprise their roles from season 1, and that comfort allowed them to spread their wings creatively.
“We get to pitch all these weird ideas to them or just stuff that we think would happen or stuff from the books that we know fans would want to see, and they listen,” Simhadri shared. “Not all of them fly, but every now and again they’re like, ‘Actually, that’s a pretty good idea. Let’s do that.’”
Simhadri finds himself in a unique position this season. On the page, The Sea of Monsters opens with the satyr establishing an empathy link between himself and Percy to alert his demigod best friend that he is trapped on Polyphemus’ Island. While the core narrative largely revolves around saving Grover, it does mean that much of his time is spent offscreen.
“Dan and John sat me down and were like, ‘You are not going to be in the season as much, and you’re not really going to get a chance to go home. You have haircuts and rehearsals in fittings, and you’re just going to have to be here but not be home and not be on set,’” Simhadri shared.
While the directive may have sounded harsh, the intentions were pure. “We want you here as much as possible, even if you’re not working. We want you here just to watch. We want you to shadow. We want you here to talk about future scripts. We just want you here.” Simhadri embraced his opportunity to learn with open arms, even asking to be a camera trainee at one point. “They let me train with them on The Ironclad, which was wicked.”
When asked if he’d be up for directing a future Percy Jackson episode, Simhadri joked that it would be “such a nightmare” but admitted he and Scobell are up for it. “I think it’s a realistic thing by season 4 or maybe 5.” The actor added, “I want them to split season 5 into two parts. If we could be in the writer’s room or be producers [by then], I think that would be awesome.”
Even though his screen time is limited, Simhadri’s scenes this season involve some of the biggest creative page-to-screen leaps that Percy Jackson makes, namely with the aforementioned “really difficult” empathy link, which Simhadri noted was shot with mirrors and weird camera tricks.
“I just loved getting to film with Walker again. I always love our one-on-one scenes,” Simhadri confessed. “If he’s doing better, it makes me want to do better. If I get a great take, he tries to one-up me, and then I one-up him. It’s just this constant back and forth where we both come out of a day exhausted in the best way possible.”
The scene that we shot is way longer, and it’s chopped up a lot in the final edit. But the original scene that we shot has us both speaking over each other. We’re inside each other’s heads literally and figuratively.
They may be finishing each other’s sentences, but they sure aren’t mirroring each other’s wardrobes. In an effort to distract Polyphemus, Grover dons a wedding dress and convinces his cyclops captor that he is a willing bride-to-be. This may make Grover appear as a damsel in distress on the surface, but Simhadri’s studying of Greek mythology’s most famous tale helped him guide Grover away from that trope.
“We all studied The Odyssey before we started filming in boot camp, and Grover’s story is pretty much identical to Penelope’s,” Simhadri noted. “She’s holding down an entire kingdom. She’s keeping 50 or so suitors just at bay. She’s coming up with different challenges and ways to keep the kingdom together while still making sure that there’s enough time for Odysseus to get back. She’s not a damsel in distress; she’s her own character. That’s something I wanted to bring to Grover this season as well, because he’s on his own quest.”
Annabeth Chase Makes New Friends, But Will She Keep The Old?
Annabeth’s Role in Percy Jackson Season 2: Tyson, Thalia, and the Sirens
Grover isn’t the only one butting heads with a cyclops this season. Jeffries’ Annabeth Chase, the daughter of Athena, finds herself with an unlikely one-eyed ally in Tyson. “I love Danny with all my heart, and I actually truly felt bad when they said action because I have to turn so mean on him,” Jeffries said, before breaking down the unique three-way dynamic at play in season 2.
“When Annabeth drifts away from Percy because of Tyson and her history with Cyclops, Percy becomes distressed. I feel she sees the love that Percy has for Tyson and the protection that Percy wants to give to Tyson. She has so much love for Percy that she wants him to be happy as well.”
As Annabeth’s friendship with Tyson builds towards the future, one of the closest bonds from her past gets fleshed out as well. Tamara Smart joins the ensemble as Thalia Grace, the daughter of Zeus, who currently lives out her days as a tree at the border of Camp Half-Blood.
“Coming into the second season and watching the flashbacks of what Annabeth really went through and how she looked at Thalia, you definitely get to see how everything makes sense,” Jeffries noted. “The flashbacks have a very big impact on how you get to see Annabeth and how much she’s grown, how she works. That fearlessness she gets from Athena, but she also gets it from Thalia.”
Fearlessness is just one of the many traits Annabeth inherited from her godly parent. Andra Day joins the series as Athena, the eighth of 12 total Olympians to be introduced. Jeffries and Day will have at least one scene together in season 2, and it left a profound impact on the young actress.
“I don’t want to spoil anything because of how good it is,” Jeffries teased. “It was the best thing that I could ever have. I felt stronger.”
“I’m seeing Athena, whom I’m supposed to be proving myself to. This is my time to be strong and show that Annabeth can do anything and all things. That’s what brought that strength out of me, because of how well she played it. When I was filming with her, and it was only for a day, I changed so much. I saw my fearlessness from another angle.”
Annabeth sharing the screen with Athena is just one of several character-defining moments that she is poised for this season. When Percy Jackson was first greenlit five years ago, one of fans’ most anticipated chapters in the entire pentalogy to be adapted to live-action was Annabeth’s encounter with The Sirens.
“This is honest-to-goodness truth, and in a good way. That was one of the hardest days of my entire filming life. I’m not even joking,” Jeffries said, explaining that she had to contend with rapidly alternating freezing cold and hot water. “Not even acting, my real self came out. I literally was shaking. Ms. Andra looked at me and was like, ‘Almost there. We’re so close.’”
The actors for the sirens were stunt performers, but Jeffries admitted that “whoever was singing scared the bejeezus out of me. I literally almost cried. I was genuinely scared, fearing for my life.” Nevertheless, she called that experience character development. “This is what I need to go through in order to give people the best adaptation of what they need to see.”
Percy Jackson: Son of Poseidon
Percy Jackson Season 2’s Poseidon Return and Percy’s Growing Power
The godly parent interactions continue with Scobell. The latest Percy Jackson season 2 trailer revealed that the titular demigod will once again encounter Poseidon, his father, this time with a bit less tension.
“He’s more comfortable talking to him. I feel like after he gets the answer from Poseidon in season 1, which is no answer at all, it’s almost like that’s a yes,” Scobell explained. “This conversation is a little bit more father-son in a way. I feel like Percy’s kind of accepted it.”
The Poseidon conversation this season is going to make a big difference.
While he may still have his frustrations with his deep-sea dad, the majority of Percy’s rage this time around is aimed at Luke (Bushnell), the scarred demigod who executed a winged-converse heel turn in last season’s finale.
“Percy’s going for the throat this time,” Scobell said bluntly. When asked about his sword clash with Luke in season 2, he cheekily replied, “Which one?”
Becoming Olympus’ Elite Employees
Percy’s mentality of going for the throat is a bit of a one-way street. Bushnell, who was bumped up to a series regular this season, noted that Luke’s anti-Olympus establishment still has open enrollment for his former Camp Half-Blood friends.
“He’s still very much holding on to hope that Percy and Annabeth will join his side and help him bring back the golden age,” Bushnell said. “In his mind, he’s doing this for them and every other demigod. I think a part of Percy, when he hears Luke speak, thinks this guy has some solid points.” The books are told from Percy’s perspective, meaning there’s always the chance he’s not a perfectly reliable narrator. “Maybe what he sees in the book isn’t exactly what actually went down,” Bushnell teased.
Luke is positioned as Percy Jackson and the Olympians’ primary antagonist over the course of the five books, but he’s not easily classified as a villain. “I think book Luke is perfect, but what I love about the show’s version of Luke is that he’s not as black-and-white,” Bushnell explained. “He’s much more of a revolutionary in the show. He’s fighting for equality.”
Luke is trying to overthrow this dictatorship, which is the gods. I think people are going to be conflicted about him.
That fight aligns him with Kronos, the lord of the Titans, who previously reigned over the world before Zeus and the Olympians overthrew him. Luke is fully “Kronos’s right-hand man” this season, and that comes with significant perks, including a refined wardrobe.
“He definitely upgraded from that Camp Half-Blood shirt, though I do miss the tee from time to time sometimes, but what an entrance for Luke this season,” Bushnell shared. “He has like three different looks this season, and they’re all similar in theme. I think it just really reflects where Luke is at now this season. He’s very much stepped into his power and his glory, living this very lavish life.”
That power and glory come with its detractors when Luke dials it up to 11, though. “When he’s fighting, I think that is his downfall a little bit. I think he can be blinded by his anger,” Bushnell explains.
He’s such a skilled swordsman, but I think he can be tipped over the edge a little bit. That technique goes out the window, and he’s just trying to take your head off. The fight scenes this season are pretty brutal, to be honest. He does not hold back.
Joining Bushnell for the call sheet promotion is Dior Goodjohn. When she initially signed on to play Clarisse La Rue in 2022, Goodjohn was told that there would be much more screentime for the daughter of Ares should a second season come around.
“When it comes to me as a professional, to actually be given that responsibility is just a very big honor,” Goodjohn gushed. “You’ll actually get to understand what makes Clarisse tick. She served her purpose in season 1, but now you get to peel back the layers. You find so much real story in her. It’s just so beautiful.”
And when those layers are peeled back, a menacing god of war becomes visible. Adam Copeland returns this season as Ares, and some of his screentime will be dedicated to an uncomfortable family reunion. “There was this one scene that we did, and it was written so beautifully. He crouched down, put his hands on his knees, and he’s like, ‘You let that sea-twerp kid break your spear. How do you think that made me feel?’” Goodjohn recalled.
Just totally just being completely mentally manipulative and verbally abusive and just gross. He’s like, ‘Punch me in the stomach. Come on, do it. Don’t be scared, do it.’ It’s this honestly really, really intense and really dark scene. You see the relationship between them, and he is proud of me for being able to push through it and not cry.
Zeroing In On The New Eye
Rounding out the new series regulars is a brand new member of the cast, Daniel Diemer, who joins the ensemble as fan-favorite cyclops Tyson. Diemer’s casting is a long time coming for the 29-year-old actor, as he had been pushing to join the series since its initial green light.
“I was aiming for Percy Jackson,” Diemer revealed good-naturedly. “I was obsessed with the series, so I was like, I want to be the hero,’” Unfortunately for him (“but very good for the fan base“), the casting was aiming for age-appropriate, but he got a second wind when Tyson auditions came around.
Diemer’s audition process went through several stages, from living room self-tapes to in-person face time with showrunner Dan Shotz and director James Bobin. The culminating step came during a chemistry read with Scobell, his most consistent scene partner, which Diemer described as going “as close to perfectly” as he could have hoped.
“It felt like we connected automatically. We both understood what the relationship was, and we both saw it the same way,” Diemer shared. “I learned a lot from him on how to be selfless in a way that I was really grateful for. I’m genuinely in awe of these kids and of how they kind of hold themselves as human beings and as professionals.”
Diemer wouldn’t meet Riordan until filming began, but when their 1:1 time finally came, he received a co-sign that “put [him] at ease really quickly.” Diemer recalled Riordan’s words with glowing pride: “’I love what you’re doing. I love the Tyson you’re creating. Keep on doing what you’re doing.’”
“Watching their dynamic and the way that they got to know each other in those early scenes was really, really wonderful to see and sweet,” Riordan added. “And I think, honestly, it’s better than the original version that I wrote.”
Even though he is a newcomer, Diemer is the oldest of Percy Jackson’s six main stars, which puts him in a natural leadership position on set. For the 29-year-old actor, that means being “the best support system” he can be to his younger co-stars.
To grow up and find yourself on camera in front of millions of people is a really difficult thing. I’m so glad I was able to do most of that rather anonymously. Watching them go through what they’re going through, I just want to be able to make sure that I’m a safe space. They can talk to me about whatever. I’m not going to judge. I’m going to be there to make sure that they feel heard and understood, and that they’re able to show up every day excited to be there for the work.
His feelings echo his character’s. “Tyson’s a support system. Those two go hand in hand, thankfully,” Deimer shared, hoping that he’s helping the show and its stars achieve all their set goals. “I’m not doing it just to have a great season 2, and that might be it. Everything was planned out for the five-season arc, if we can get it. We want to do this for five years, maybe more. If we don’t work as a team, that doesn’t happen.”
Looking Beyond Percy Jackson and The Olympians Season 2
Diemer’s hopes for “maybe more” than a half-decade of Percy Jackson are shared by the title star himself.
“I’d love to keep going. If we do Heroes of Olympus, I think that’d be awesome,” Scobell agreed, alluding to Riordan’s Avengers-esque Percy Jackson sequel series. “I just really want to make something out of this for everyone. Percy matters so much to me, and he matters so much to so many people, and I feel like the goal is just to show people how, not how great it is, but lean into Rick’s intended purpose for making it.”
But Heroes of Olympus is a conversation for another time. For now, all roads lead to The Great Prophecy, an ominous overarching message that permeates through Percy Jackson’s five-book run. “That has to be there for the story to have that forward momentum.“
Season 2 is the first time audiences are learning of The Great Prophecy, which is the final conflict toward which Percy’s world is heading toward this final conflict, and which all parties involved hope to represent on the small screen.
Scobell cautioned that said prophecy would come into play more so in season 3, however. “Right now, I’m doing a lot of stuff with Thalia where we have that kind of back and forth about it, and everything we do is around The Great Prophecy.”
We’re definitely ramping up the stakes. I’ve been involved with all the [season 3] scripts as well, and it hugs pretty closely to The Titan’s Curse book. If fans have read the books, I think they will be pleased, and we have some surprises. But yes, we’re building toward the same moment.
When asked what his ultimate goal is with the series, Scobell admitted that he’s “just living every day” in the moment. That said, he does have one specific off-set moment he’s striving for. “I want to do a thing where I just get to ask Logan Lerman stuff.” The actor pitched a concept “where we watch the first movie and the first two episodes of the show together, and we just talk about how it was making them.”
He revealed a funny, worlds-colliding coincidence on the set of season 3. “I actually fought the guy who was Luke’s stunt double from the movie. It was super weird to me that I was fighting Luke, technically, and another guy in another series about the same thing.”
The two are kindred spirits in a way, not unlike how this entire cast has operated since cameras first began rolling in 2022. They say the future is unwritten, but prophecies beg to differ.
The first 2 episodes of Percy Jackson and the Olympians season 2 premiere December 10 on Disney+ and Hulu, with new episodes following every Wednesday.
- Release Date
-
December 19, 2023
- Network
-
Disney+
- Showrunner
-
Jonathan E. Steinberg, Dan Shotz
- Directors
-
James Bobin
- Writers
-
Joe Tracz, Andrew Miller
-
Walker Scobell
Percy Jackson
-
Leah Sava Jeffries
Annabeth Chase
