“Percy Jackson and the Olympians” became the most successful TV project in Disney’s history – 13.3 million views in 6 days
The series Percy Jackson and the Olympians , has become a huge success on Disney+, becoming an adaptation of the popular Rick Riordan novels , “The Lightning Thief”. The project received development approval back in May 2020, which kicked off a lengthy pre-production process. The first season of the series, which adapts Riordan’s book The Lightning Robbery, found its actors in the first half of 2022 and went through an eight-month filming process that wrapped in February. After that, the eight-episode first season went through the final visual effects processing in post-production in preparation for its premiere in December. The premiere took place immediately after the SAG-AFTRA strike ended, which allowed the actors to freely promote the project and attend its red and blue carpet screening.
Although the series was announced for release on December 20 at 3 a.m. ET, like WandaVision and The Mandalorian, Disney+ surprised fans by releasing the entire first season on Tuesday night’s premiere time. This step proved to be a huge success.
According to Disney in a press release, Percy Jackson and the Olympians is “the biggest premiere of Disney Branded Television ever” and “one of the top five premieres of the 2023 season.” This is thanks to the first episode, which in the first six days of broadcasting gathered 13.3 million views worldwide on Disney+ and Hulu.
On social media, the hashtag #PercyJackson attracted 212 million views on TikTok over the past seven days.
What is the series about?
Walker Scobell (The Adam Project) plays the demigod in the title role. This eight-episode first season sends Percy on a quest to find Zeus’ stolen lightning bolt as he is considered the prime suspect. If Percy fails to succeed by the summer solstice, the world will suffer unpredictable consequences. The series also stars Aryan Simhadri (Grover Underwood), Lea Jeffries (Annabeth Chase), Glynn Thurman (Charon), Jason Mantzoukas (Dionysus), Dior Goodjohn (Clarice La Rue), Charlie Bushnell (Luke), Adam “Edge” Copeland (Ares), Jay Duplass (Hades), Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hermes), Timothy Omundson (Hephaestus), Lance Reddick (Zeus) and Toby Stephens (Poseidon).
