Percy Jackson & The Olympians follows the titular young hero as he discovers that his absentee father is Poseidon. After being brought to a camp full of demigods, like himself, he is sent on a quest to hunt down Zeus’ missing master bolt with Annabeth Chase and Grover Underwood. As the trio travels across the country and between realms, they learn more about the Gods and discover who framed Percy for the theft of the bolt in the hopes of starting a war between Zeus and Poseidon.
Percy Jackson & The Olympians stars Walker Scobell, Leah Sava Jeffries, and Aryan Simhadri. Percy Jackson & The Olympians features a star-studded cast of guest stars, including Adam Copeland, Jessica Parker Kennedy, Timothy Omundson, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Toby Stephens, and Lance Reddick. The series is based on Rick Riordan’s beloved young adult Percy Jackson & The Olympians novels. Riordan also created the Disney+ series with Jon E. Steinberg.
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Screen Rant interviewed executive producers Jon Steinberg and Dan Shotz before the highly anticipated first season finale of Percy Jackson & The Olympians. They discussed bringing the mythical creatures to life on screen and teased what fans can look forward to in the finale. They also broke down the balance between staying faithful to Riordan’s books for fans while making it exciting for newcomers as well as what they are excited about in a potential second season.
Check out a depiction of the Minotaur animatic here:
Jon Steinberg & Dan Shotz Talk Percy Jackson & The Olympians
Screen Rant: I really love the monsters that we have in the series. They’re absolutely stunning and look so realistic while also feeling very cinematic. Can you talk to me a little bit about the inspiration for the different looks from the Minotaur to Medusa and the Chimera?
Jon Steinberg: I think with each one of the creatures, it’s a bit of a challenge because these are ideas and characters and creatures who have been around for thousands of years and have been iterated a lot more than that. There’s as many versions of Medusa art and Minotaur art from movies I’ve seen growing up, to recent movies, to clay pots from 1500 years ago, 2000 years ago, and I think the idea for us was to make these creatures feel both familiar enough that you understood the tradition they come from and you understand that they are of this mythology and different enough that they didn’t feel like they could have been in anyone else’s version of a Greek mythology story.
I think each one of those creatures, it was a little different. The conversation was different, it was a little bit about finding out who we felt like they were, even the Minotaur, of trying to find a little bit of a personality for him that took him away from just being a big scary thing. I think with him it was a little bit about finding a way to make him a little bit of a dope and a little lumbering, a little kind of, I don’t know, the sense of him I think. There was just a little bit of a cartoon character living in his DNA somewhere that I think took some of the edge off of what could have otherwise been a creature that scares the little kids. I think we wanted him to scare the little kids just enough, but not quite too much.
Dan Shotz: And I think that was across the board of finding the right balance of how to keep the stakes of these monsters, their threat of taking these demi-god’s lives, but at the same time making it that there’s something about them that has character and I don’t know, has something interesting that doesn’t make you want to run out of the room. Jon with his 7-year-old, was constantly taking temperature of how scary is this? Which was a good barometer for us because we really wanted to make it for everyone.
That is the perfect litmus test. And I love that you kind of compared it to that dopey cartoon feel because that completely clicks in my mind with the clip I was able to watch of the process of creating the Minotaur, which was very cool because we got to see the skeleton and musculature all the way to the final look. Can you talk to me about the different stages of that process and how it shapes the final version of the character that we get to see on screen?
Jon Steinberg: It starts with concept artists, I think, and it starts with a conversation with some of the most talented conceptual artists we’ve ever worked with and having this conversation. What do you want it to feel like? What do you want it to not feel like? You’re sort of building the DNA of this character in these conversations. And you go through a number of iterations and then you start to find it, and then there’s a moment in which you’re looking at something that’s pretty close and then that gets handed off to the next team.
It’s this really pretty amazing team effort of trying to build a character from a blank white page into something that feels like it can interact with live action characters on screen and feel as real as possible. And I think every step of that way is about trying to both imagine forward what it can be and what it can do and try to keep one eye fixed on the soul of it that you started with. And how to make it feel like you never get too far away from the guy you were hoping he was going to be.
Dan Shotz: And a lot of, specifically for the Minotaur, I think it was most of the art you’ve seen of a Minotaur is just sort of a man’s body with a Bullhead just stuck on top. And I think we got very excited about what if there’s a lot more bull to him? That’s kind of the bigger threat anyway, and what if this creature can be on all fours and then go up on his two feet or two hoofs. So there was a lot of fun to play with that and when we started talking about it that way, he just started feeling like, wait, I’ve never seen it like this before. And that’s when we realized, oh, then this is special. And specific to Percy Jackson.
I love that. And then this adaptation is very faithful to the original novels while also still bringing in elements that are new, like the tete-a-tete between Aries and Grover or Hephaestus’s introduction. What was the guidepost to make sure the fans felt how faithful you were to the original work, while also what inspired those changes to make it your own?
Jon Steinberg: I think I kind of always saw this project as a story that needed to speak to four different audiences all at the same time. It needed to be something that to people who loved these books and for whom these books really occupy a special place in their childhood or in their reading life or just their imagination that this delivered to them and that this felt like a realization of that story that was really faithful and that made you feel all the ways you were hoping you’d feel when you read the book and hoped one day you’d see this come to life. At the same time, I think it needed to work for people who had never heard of Percy Jackson or had heard of it, but we’re only really casually acquainted with it. It needed to stand on its own two feet from page one.
And then I think in the other direction it needed to speak to kids and feel relatable and real. And if you’re watching it as a 12-year-old, it’s speaking to experiences you’re having and it’s a ride you understand and it’s something that you feel fully sucks you in. And at the same time, I think it needs to work for adults, for the parents of those kids, for adults who don’t have kids because it’s about something and it feels like there was enough care put into that story about what all these things mean and about the nature of family and broken families and found families.
And so I think every script, every scene, was thought of that way. Was thought of about how is it speaking to all four of these audiences in a way where they never feel like there are four different voices shouting at each other? They all kind of had to sync and make sure that no one’s experience was interfering with anyone else’s.
Dan Shotz: To what Jon’s saying, the greatest compliment we’ve gotten that means so much to us over these last many weeks is where adults are saying they couldn’t wait for their kids to watch it and kids saying they couldn’t wait for their parents to watch it. That it’s connecting to people in all those different ways, not only for how the story has connected to people for 20 years with what it’s saying, whether you’re a parent with a kid who has differences or you’re a kid who feels like they’ve connected to a specific character but feels like so many people are tapping into this. And in the way we tried to build it was to give all of those access points.
And then we have the finale of the first season coming up tomorrow. Is there anything you guys can tease that you think audiences will be especially excited to see?
Jon Steinberg: I think with all of the emotional hoops that Percy and Annabeth and Grover have had to jump through this season, I think the feeling that all of those questions are going to be answered and that all of those components of the journey are going to find a moment to really look back and express themselves. I think it was fun for us. We just watched it all together last night and it felt like this is the ending that this season deserves.
Dan Shotz: I’m very excited for people to see Lance Reddick as Zeus. I think there’s been… They got a taste of Toby Stevens in episode seven, but in episode eight to meet Zeus and to see Lance Reddick, who we missed dearly bring the depth and his force, but also his vulnerability to that role is really something to see.
I’m really hoping we get a second season. One of the things I love about the show is how you’ve introduced such rich characters with really small amounts of screen time because a lot of these characters we only see in one episode. Is there a particular character, be it a God or one of the demi-god kids that you really are looking forward to explore more if you get a second season?
Jon Steinberg: I think the way that Tyson is positioned in the second book, not to explore more as sort of an addition, but as someone who really steps into a dynamic between Percy and Sally and really Percy and Annabeth and asks these relationships that finally found a comfortable place to stand at the end of the first season, to find a different way to stand and to be upset and pushed, has been really kind of an exciting conversation on our end. So, I think hopefully if everything works out and we get to build that season, that feels like a fun project to take on.
About Percy Jackson & The Olympians
Percy Jackson is on a dangerous quest. Outrunning monsters and outwitting gods, he must journey across America to return Zeus’ master bolt and stop an all-out war. After losing his mother, Percy is sheltered at Camp Half-Blood, a sanctuary for demigod children. He must prove himself and confront his origins once he discovers he too is a demigod, and will take off into the perils of pursuing enemies in search of the Underworld. With the help of his quest mates Annabeth and Grover, Percy’s journey will lead him closer to the answers he seeks: how to fit into a world where he feels out of place, if he’ll ever see his mother again, and if he can ever find out who he’s destined to be.
Check out our other interviews here:
- Walker Scobell, Leah Sava Jeffries & Aryan Simhadri
- Becky & Rick Riordan
- Jon Steinberg & Dan Shotz
- Timothy Omundson
- Cast & Crew on Red Carpet
Percy Jackson & the Olympians
Based on the novel series by Rick Riordan Percy Jackson & the Olympians is an action-adventure fantasy television series created for Disney+. When Percy Jackson is framed for the theft of Zeus’ almighty thunderbolt, Percy must clear his name, all while harnessing the powers inherited by his father, Poseidon, at a camp created for demi-gods.
- Release Date
- December 20, 2023
- Cast
- Walker Scobell , Leah Sava Jeffries , Aryan Simhadri , Jason Mantzoukas , Megan Mullally , Glynn Turman , Adam Copeland , Virginia Kull , Lance Reddick
- Seasons
- 1
- Story By
- Rick Riordan
- Writers
- Rick Riordan , Jonathan E. Steinberg
- Streaming Service(s)
- Disney Plus
- Franchise(s)
- Percy Jackson & The Olympians
- Directors
- James Bobin , Anders Engström
- Showrunner
- Jonathan E. Steinberg , Dan Shotz
