SAN DIEGO – For "Percy Jackson" fans, seeing "The Titan's Curse" adapted on screen has been a long time coming.
"Percy Jackson and the Olympians" stars Walker Scobell, Aryan Simhadri, Charlie Bushnell, Tamara Smart, Levi Chrisopulos and Olive Abercrombie stepped out at San Diego Comic-Con on July 23 to share new details about the third season of the Disney+ show based on Rick Riordan's novels.
They also revealed the season's premiere date: The show will be back for Season 3 on Nov. 20.
Season 3 is based on "The Titan's Curse," the third installment of the book series that centered on Percy seeking to rescue the goddess Artemis after she is kidnapped. In a departure from the first two seasons, the third book has not previously been adapted, as the prior
"Percy Jackson" films with Logan Lerman only got up to the second book.
During the Comic-Con panel, executive producer Dan Shotz said the fact that "The Titan's Curse" has "never been adapted before" is "what's so exciting about doing this book." But while the show will remain faithful to the source material, there were opportunities to expand on it, he said.
Annabeth Chase (Leah Sava Jeffries) will have a greater role in Season 3 than she did in the book.
"Annabeth, as you know, in this story is separated from the group and is not actually in the book very much," Shotz said. "But because you guys – and we – love Annabeth so much, we are going to open up the world and explore where Leah is, where Annabeth is, and give a whole new look at that world. So there are so many opportunities for us to build on this beautiful piece that we had and to expand on it."
The season is "more mature" and "more intense" than the first two, Shotz promised, while executive producer Craig Silverstein teased it's "bigger and it gets darker."
"You’re going to go to some places that you’ve been waiting to see for a long time," Silverstein teased.
What the 'Percy Jackson and the Olympians' Season 3 sneak peek revealed
The first few minutes of Season 3 was shown during the panel. In the scene, Thalia fights a creature in a parking garage before Percy and Annabeth show up to help her and recruit her for a mission. But Percy has second thoughts about working with Thalia after overhearing her asking about Luke's whereabouts.
Thalia is "so layered this season," Smart noted, adding there will be further exploration of her traumatic childhood.
"We get to see a good amount in Season 3 about that," she said.
Luke, meanwhile, is as "deep in the darkness as we've ever seen him this season," Bushnell said. "He kind of failed Kronos a couple of times at the end of last season. … Luke has been trying to make amends for those failures, and we see the physical and mental toll that that’s taken on him."
The third season will bring on more star power, with newcomers including "Logan" star Dafne Keen as Artemis, plus Kate McKinnon as Aphrodite, Holt McCallany as Atlas, Ming-Na Wen as Hera, Jennifer Beals as Demeter and Hubert Smielecki as Apollo. Saara Chaudry will also play Zoë Nightshade, Artemis' lieutenant.
Bushnell pointed to Atlas as the character he's most excited for fans to meet, saying working with McCallany was "a dream come true."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Percy Jackson' Season 3 will make this tweak to the book
