Disney+ has renewed “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” for a second season.
Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed that Season 1 had been streamed for more than 110 million hours on Hulu and Disney+ during the company’s most recent quarterly earnings call. When divided by the duration of the season, that comes out to about 20.6 million views overall, showing that viewers increased throughout the course of the season’s month-long run. Variety exclusively revealed that Episode 1 had 13.3 million views in its first six days of availability.
With a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and praise from Variety’s Aramide Tinubu for being “a gorgeous, intriguing narrative about self-discovery, courage and friendship,” the series was also well-received by critics.
Disney executives were banking on “Percy Jackson’s” success—which was based on the book series of the same name by Rick Riordan—to launch a big franchise, so they gave the show a budget equal to that of Star Wars. “Have the show live alongside the worlds created by our sister studios at Lucasfilm and Marvel,” stated Karey Burke, president of 20th Television, in a cover story for Variety. This was one of the main objectives over the creation process. Making sure that this series felt as expansive and creative as it could truly motivated us to spend no money at all.
The first season of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” portrayed 12-year-old modern demigod Percy (Walker Scobell), who is still adjusting to his newfound superhuman abilities, after Zeus (the late Lance Reddick) accused him of stealing his master lightning bolt. In an effort to locate it and bring order back to Olympus, Percy sets out on a journey across America with his companions Grover (Aryan Simhadri) and Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries).
Riordan and Jon Steinberg, who co-showrunner Dan Shotz, created “Percy Jackson and the Olympians.” Riordan, his spouse Rebecca Riordan, Steinberg, Shotz, James Bobin, Bert Salke, Monica Owusu-Breen, Jim Rowe, Anders Engström, Jet Wilkinson, and Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Jeremy Bell, and D.J. Goldberg of the Gotham Group are among the executive producers. Disney Branded Television is the network that produced the series, and 20th Television is the studio.