‘Percy Jackson & The Olympians’: Disney+ Finds Their Percy Jackson in Walker Scobell

Meet your new Percy Jackson: actor Walker Scobell has taken the titular lead in Disney+’s Percy Jackson & The Olympians, the highly anticipated live-action series based on Rick Riordan’s books.

Riordan has amassed many fans over the course of writing Percy Jackson & the Olympians, his pentalogy of world-famous fantasy novels about Greek gods living in the 21st century. And because the series has accumulated so many fans since the first book, The Lightning Thief, was published in 2005, many people have been wishing for an on-screen adaptation of their beloved series to replace (and, hopefully, outdo) the 2010 film version of Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief that Riordan was not fully onboard with.

Now, Riordan is all-in to help Disney+ develop an adaption of his novels entitled Percy Jackson and the Olympians, even serving as a writer on the pilot episode, in addition to acting as an executive producer for the whole project.

The fantasy action-drama series follows 12-year-old demigod Percy Jackson, who exists in today’s world as a bit of an outsider as he deals with ADHD and dyslexia on top of an impulsive and lively spirit that can lead him to cause trouble when confronted with things that seem unfair to him.

On top of these challenges and the general trials of adolescence, Percy is forced to suddenly come to terms with new supernatural powers and the truth of his parentage, leading the young man and his friends on a journey to restore order to Olympus, take care of the people he cares for, and finally find a place where he truly belongs.

The show’s first season is set to consist of eight episodes, and so far, has only confirmed the casting of its lead amongst the beloved cast of characters.

So, who could take on such a well-known and demanding role and do it justice? None other than 13-year-old actor Walker Scobell, who recently burst into the entertainment industry with an impressive debut in Netflix Original action comedy-adventure film The Adam Project, starring as Young Adam alongside Ryan Reynolds’s Big Adam in a title that also featured talent like Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Garner, Zoe Saldaña, and Catherine Keener.

Scobell is also going to act in upcoming sci-fi action-adventure film Secret Headquarters, about a boy who discovers a secret headquarters underneath his home, leading him and his friends to believe that his estranged father may be leading an exciting double life as a superhero. The film also stars Owen Wilson, Jesse Williams, Michael Peña, Jessie Mueller, and Louie Chaplin Moss.