Disney+ isn’t going cheap with its series adaptation of Rick Riordan’s “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” novels which debuts with a double-episode on December 20th.
The live-action series follows the fantastical story of the titular twelve-year-old modern demigod, Percy Jackson (Walker Scobell), who’s just coming to terms with his newfound supernatural powers when the sky god Zeus accuses him of stealing his master lightning bolt. Now Percy must trek across America to find it and restore order to Olympus.
Unlike the film adaptations which he’s essentially disavowed and changed up much of his work, Riordan and his wife Becky have been involved in the series since its inception and call this a faithful adaptation.
In a new feature piece in Variety, it has been revealed that in order to pull that off the show is coming with a solid budget with sources for the trade saying each episode of the series costs between $12-15 million.
That would put it on par with shows like “The Mandalorian,” “The Crown” and the final season of “Game of Thrones”. Karey Burke, president of Disney’s 20th Television tells the outlet:
“The North Star in the development process was to honor the books and Rick’s vision, and secondarily, to have the show live alongside the worlds created by our sister studios at Lucasfilm and Marvel. We really wanted to spare no expense to make sure that this series felt as big and imaginative.”
The aim here by Disney is to launch a completely new franchise on its streamer as opposed to its current titles which rely on older franchises.
Also starring in the show are Sava Jeffries as Annabeth Chase, Aryan Simhadri as Grover Underwood, Dior Goodjohn as Clarisse La Rue, Charlie Bushnell as Luke Castellan, Virginia Kull as Sally Jackson, Glynn Turman as Chiron, Megan Mullally as Mr. Dodds, Olivea Morton as Nancy Bobofit, and Timm Sharp as Gabe Ugliano.
The gods include Jason Mantzoukas as Dionysus, Adam Copeland as Ares, Jay Duplass as Hades, Lin-Manuel Miranda as Hermes, Timothy Omundson as Hephaestus, Toby Stephens as Poseidon, and the late Lance Reddick as Zeus.
The series is being directed by James Bobin from a screenplay co-written by Riordan and Jon Steinberg.
