Last week, Disney announced that Lin-Manuel Miranda had joined the cast of the upcoming Disney+ Original series “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” in a recurring role. The Tony, Emmy and Grammy award winner will play the Greek god Hermes.
Based on Disney Hyperion’s best-selling book series by award-winning author Rick Riordan, “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” tells the fantastical story of a 12-year-old modern demigod, Percy Jackson, who’s just coming to terms with his newfound divine powers when the sky god Zeus accuses him of stealing his master lightning bolt. With help from his friends Grover and Annabeth, Percy must embark on an adventure of a lifetime to find it and restore order to Olympus.
Recently, Riordan updated his blog to say that the upcoming Disney+ series has cast three more major Greek gods, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. The author could not reveal which actors are playing the characters right now but hopefully, we will have an official announcement from Disney soon. You can read an excerpt from Riordan’s blog below:
I’d imagine everyone is curious about casting for the other Olympian gods. As you know from the books, if you’ve read the books, not all twelve Olympian gods appear in book one, so not all gods will appear in season one, nor have all gods been cast yet. Actors have to be cast based on scripts, and scripts have to be written one season at a time. Aphrodite, for instance, probably won’t appear until season three, assuming we’re lucky enough to get a season three, so that casting is at least 2-3 years away. Apollo and Artemis, same thing. Hestia, Hera and Demeter probably wouldn’t appear until season five.
Still to come for this season: the Big Three, Hades, Poseidon, Zeus. When those parts will be announced publicly, I’m not sure yet.
The series stars Walker Scobell, who will play the titular character in this epic adventure and Aryan Simhadri (Disney’s “Spin”) and Leah Sava Jeffries (“Empire”) who will play Percy’s friends Grover and Annabeth, respectively. Additional cast includes Virginia Kull, Glynn Turman, Jason Mantzoukas, Megan Mullally, and Timm Sharp who will all have recurring guest star roles. Additionally, Disney recently announced that Charlie Bushnell will play Luke Castellan, Dior Goodjohn will play Clarisse La Rue, and Olivea Morton will play Nancy Bobofit.
Adam Copeland, Suzanne Cryer, and Jessica Parker Kennedy have also recently joined the cast.
Filming is currently underway on “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” and will continue until the end of the year. A release date for the eight-episode series has not been announced yet but we may not see “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” premiere on Disney+ until 2024.
You can watch a first look at the series below:
Source: Rick Riordan Blog