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Everybody’s favorite demigods are back.
“Percy Jackson and the Olympians” stars Walker Scobell, Leah Sava Jeffries and Aryan Simhadri — along with the show’s co-creator and executive producer Jonathan E. Steinberg, and executive producer Dan
Shotz — made the trek to Italy’s Lucca Comics and Games Festival on Friday for a dedicated panel presentation that included previously unseen footage of Season 3.
Also returning to the series are Charlie Bushnell as Luke Castellan, Daniel Diemer as Tyson and Dior Goodjohn as Clarisse La Rue. New Greek gods will also be introduced, including Hubert Smielecki as Apollo, Kate McKinnon as Aphrodite and Ming-Na Wen as Hera.
Adapting Rick Riordan’s third book, “The Titan’s Curse,” the third season follows friends Percy Jackson (Scobell), Grover Underwood (Simhadri) and Annabeth Chase (Jeffries) and their fellow campers at Camp Half-Blood in their battle against the Titan Atlas (Holt McCallany).
“Zeus sucks!” Percy Jackson says in one of the clips shown at Lucca, drawing a wild roar from fans assembled at the Teatro Moderno movie theatre. The series has grown in the four years since it debuted, along with its actors, hitting a more mature and rebellious stride. As such, Scobell in a wet T-shirt also drew an appreciative scream from the Lucca audience.
In the first of the clips, Thalia (Tamara Smart) fights a monster in an underground carpark — with hints of the ’80s fantasy classic “Highlander” — when show mainstays Percy and Annabeth show up to aid her and try to recruit her for their mission to save two half-bloods, as the demigods are called, from a military academy.
“Season 3 is really, really big,” Steinberg said. “I think the story that we’ve been hinting at for for two seasons about the bigger war is now starting to become real. And we’re going to meet our first real bad guy.”
“The scope is incredible,” segued Shotz. “Bigger monsters. We’ve got titans. We’ve got gods. And this season, we’ve got all the Gods. So you’re going to get to meet all of your favorite characters, but really, it starts with this incredible cast.”
That cast, now older, is also feeling the series bleeding into their day-to-day existence. As Scobell said: “All the things that we do in the show are based on Greek mythology. And when you hear it outside of filming, you kind of get this weird feeling.”
He added, “I remember the other day, I was in class and I was not really paying attention. And someone said something about the minotaur, and I lifted my head up and freaked out for a second.”
Simhadri underlines that his character, Grover, has also experienced conflict between the real and mythological worlds.
“Grover can’t always really talk about his personal quest with Annabeth and Percy,” he said. “I don’t think they understand the value of the natural world or Pan as much as he does.”
He enthused about the new storyline with the hunters led by Artemis. “It’s such a nice change of pace for him to get to be able to find a kindred soul and be able to talk about the things that he cares about with someone who understands it as well as he does,” Simhadri said.
Fan favorite Jeffries spoke about how Annabeth’s story has been expanded from the relatively small role her character plays in the novel, and made more assertive.
“This season, she’s very much more independent since she has to rely on herself. You can see how much she really only thinks about survival,” she said. “And you will see her strategy about everything that’s going on around her is not to convince the other person, or to save their life. It’s it’s to help herself.”
She added, “This might sound weird, but it’s a smart manipulation, basically.”
“Percy Jackson and the Olympians” Season 3 will premiere Nov. 20 on Disney+.
