When season one of Percy Jackson and the Olympians premiered in December 2023, it came with heavy expectations. Fans of the franchise felt burned by earlier movie adaptations of Rick Riordan’s beloved novel series, but the show soared to the top of the Disney+ charts. Now, it heads into the Children’s and Family Emmys (which are set to take place March 15 in Los Angeles) with 16 nominations, more than any other show.
“I think any time you’re in a production like this one, where everybody cares and everybody’s really invested, not just in the work and the material [but also] in each other — it’s a really good group,” co-showrunner Jonathan E. Steinberg tells THR. “It’s nice for everybody to feel recognized in that way.”
What were your expectations going into the first season as far as how the show might land with audiences?
“Expectations” is a loaded word. My aspiration for the show was for it to be something that had something to say to everyone — that as a kid, you felt excited about watching with your parents, and as a parent, you felt excited about watching with your kids. And if you don’t have kids, you got into it, maybe unexpectedly, as well. When it came out, and when we started hearing from people that it was one of the only things they were watching with their family, that was really gratifying. That was really the target we were trying to hit.
Now with it having performed so well and getting mostly good reviews and this awards recognition, does it change your mindset going into future seasons?
The deeper you get into the story, the more you want the story to age with the audience that fell in love with it. As these characters get older, and as the [actors] get older, it may get a little more complicated and grow in that way. But its heart is in the place where it started. Trying to keep it speaking that language is really important to us.
What was the learning curve like for you working on a show where your lead actors are kids — considering requirements like shorter days?
Part of the commitment we made to the kids and to their families was that this was always going to be a production where that stuff was important. Does it make things easier? No, of course not. But the benefit of having kids that age, kids who feel like they’re having the experiences that they’re portraying, is well worth it — especially with these kids, who have managed to do that work and juggle school and whatever else in a way that is far more seamless than I could probably manage.
Which moments of season one came closest to the idea you had for the show on the page?
Our internal visual effects team and the Industrial Light & Magic team that were involved in working hand in hand from square one are the best there is. You get spoiled really quickly. You can set the bar as high as you want, and then everybody’s trying to exceed it, and everybody has the wherewithal to exceed it. Some of the creature work, when we started, there was a lot of head- scratching — “How are we going to do this?” But I thought the Minotaur turned out really well. The chimera turned out really well. They were things that were just exciting to see all the way through the process.
Have you had any discussions, either with Disney or among yourselves, about a third season yet?
We’re definitely talking. Part of wanting to keep the process going is trying to do whatever we can to be ready for it and to know how to have the conversations and to have a plan. Nothing’s official yet, but we assumed when we left Vancouver that we would be back at some point — soon, hopefully.
I would imagine that having the books at hand would make it hard not to think about how you’re going to approach the next one (The Titan’s Curse).
Even in season one, we were thinking about it like the first act of the full story that it is. That’s part of the virtue of telling it this way. When Rick wrote the books, he wrote them in sequence, and we get to see the whole painting and then adapt it and sort of reformat it. Some of the conversations about season three have been conversations that have been happening since season one. You can’t avoid it. It’s all part of the same story.
This story appeared in the March 6 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
Source: Hollywoodreporter
