Upcoming Percy Jackson series has found its Percy — Walker Scobell
Disney Plus' upcoming Percy Jackson series, based on Rick Riordan's best-selling novels Percy Jackson and the Olympians, has found its water-bending demigod — Walker Scobell has been cast as the lead.
The author, also an executive producer of the series, took to his Instagram to announce the news and introduce the new Percy to the world. "Demigods, the time has come. I am thrilled to introduce you to Percy Jackson," he captioned a photo of Scobell.
Riordan also added a link to his blog post where he talked about the casting choice in more detail. "It was obvious to me and the rest of the team that Walker had the perfect mix of comedic timing, sweetness, rebelliousness, snark and heroism to embody our hero Percy Jackson," he wrote.
The series got the green light at Disney Plus in January and Scobell's casting was finalised by the end of the month. Riordan shared a screenshot from the video call in which he revealed the news to the new Percy.
"Walker is also a super-fan of the books, having read everything through The Trials of Apollo. He already owns a Camp Half-Blood t-shirt, as you can tell from the photo above. He had no idea I was going to be on this Zoom call. He didn’t know the call was to tell him he got the part. The shirt was just him repping his love for the series and that look of surprise is totally genuine," the author described Scobell's reaction.
The series follows 12-year-old Percy Jackson coming to terms with the fact that he's not a mere mortal as he discovers his supernatural powers, battles monsters and goes on quests to appease the Olympian gods. The first novel starts with Zeus, the sky god, accusing the demigod of stealing his lightning bolt and so Percy sets off on a journey across America in search of it. The production on the series is set to begin this summer.
The book series comprises of The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Titan’s Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth, and The Last Olympian. Riordan also published companion books The Demigod Files and The Demigod Diaries.
The first two books Lightning Thief and Sea of Monsters have been adapted into feature films in 2010 and 2013 respectively, with Logan Lerman starring as Percy. Fans who read the books were dissatisfied with the films which aged the main characters and made several other key changes to the plot. The series is a second chance for them to get it right.
Scobell made his film debut with Netflix’s The Adam Project starring alongside Ryan Reynolds, Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Garner.
