Percy Jackson‘s premiere on Disney+ achieved higher views than Marvel’s Loki and Secret Invasion premieres combined, ComicBook.com reports. The franchise was created by author Rick Riordan (The Son of Neptune, The Chalice of the Gods, The Sun and the Star), and after successful movies in the past, it has arrived on the small screen with a TV series. It was predicted that Percy Jackson and the Olympians would have been successful, but the show’s views being that high surprised the entertainment industry.
The popularity of Loki and Secret Invasion was unraveled, but this twist seen in the Nielsen streaming ratings for Percy Jackson and The Olympians‘ views proves otherwise. According to ComicBook.com, on Dec. 19th, fans were able to see that the show’s debut was 13.3 million views in total. Percy Jackson had a total of 572 million minutes of watchtime, which was over what Loki (446 million minutes) and Secret Invasion (461 million minutes) had.
Disney, in an exclusive press release, stated, via ComicBook.com, that Percy Jackson and the Olympians is “the top Disney Branded Television premiere of all time,” and “one of the top five season premieres of 2023,” as well. The first episode totaled 13.3 million views globally, as stated earlier, on both Disney+ and Hulu. On social media, instead, the Percy Jackson hashtag has accumulated 212 million views on TikTok, this past week only. It’s safe to say that this show is one of the most viewed right now.
But what is Percy Jackson and the Olympians truly about? According to ComicBook.com, it’s based on the book written by Riordan, named The Lightning Thief. The show stars Walker Scobell (The Adam Project, Secret Headquarters) as Percy, nominated “the demigod,” showing viewers the mysterious journey of him and his friends to search and return Zeus’s master bolt, which was stolen. Mount Olympus frames Percy as prime suspect, so, if he doesn’t return with the bolt by the Summer Solstice deadline, the world will be destroyed by the war of Mount Olympus.
Other main stars of the show are: Leah Jeffries (Beast, Something from Tiffany’s), who plays Annabeth Chase; Aryan Simhadri (Spin, Cheaper by the Dozen, The Main Event) who plays Grover Underwood; Jason Mantzoukas (The League, Brooklyn 99, Big Mouth) who is Dionysus; Glynn Turman (Rustin, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Sextuplets) who plays Chiron; Dior Goodjohn (Head of the Class, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Are You Afraid of the Dark? Ghost Island) who plays Clarisse La Rue; Adam “Edge” Copeland (Money Plane, Interrogation, Bending the Rules) who plays Ares; Charlie Bushnell (Diary of a Future President, In The Know) portraying Luke; Jay Duplass (Pain Hustlers, Togetherness, Outside In) who is Hades; Timothy Omundson (Psych, Psych: The Movie, Woody Woodpecker) who plays Hephaestus; Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton, In the Heights, Mary Poppins Returns) who portrays Hermes; Toby Stephens (Jane Eyre, Lost in Space, Hunter Killer) is Poseidon; and Lance Reddick (John Wick, The Wire, Bosch) is Zeus.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians is now streaming its eight-episode first season on Disney+ every Tuesday.