'Percy Jackson' producers on Season 2, recasting Lance Reddick: 'We're in denial'

PASADENA, Calif. ― Percy Jackson and his sword will be back.

The preteen hero of Disney+'s "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" will return for a second season of the TV show as early as next winter, although production has not yet begun. The new season will be based on the second book in Rick Riordan's Percy series, "A Sea of Monsters."

"There’s a lot of stuff up in the air," producer Jonathan E. Steinberg told reporters at the Television Critics Association press tour Saturday. They want to start filming "as soon as possible. We all feel the demand ... We want to do it right. We want to make sure the second season of the show lives up to or is better than the first."

The first season has been a smash hit for Disney+, turned its young stars into celebrities and delighted fans of Riordan's books, who were sorely disappointed with 2010 and 2013 film adaptations starring Logan Lerman. One billion #PercyJackson views on TikTok later, the new version, which is being made with help from Riordan himself, is distinctly more popular among the Halfblood faithful.

"The response to this first (season) is obviously really encouraging," Steinberg said. "We’ll hopefully have a chance to get to all the things everyone wants to see. … These books weren’t written all together, and one of the opportunities with the show is to have each one of these stories to take advantage of the material that comes afterward so that it feels like it’s all cut from the same stone."

The writers are "looking at books three, four and five to look for what we can bring into Season 2," said producer Dan Shotz. And in terms of telling the long story of Riordan's books, the producers aren't worried aboout getting all the way to Book 5. "You tell (the story) until someone tells you to stop," Steinberg said.

Season 2 will look slightly different from Season 1 due to the death of Lance Reddick, who played Zeus, king of all the gods. The producers have yet to replace him in the cast and are still reeling from his 2023 death.

"I don't think anybody's there yet," Steinberg said. "There's also a little bit of denial that that's something we're going to have to deal with."

They said that Reddick's wife Stephanie gave them a call after the series' December debut to congratulate them and say how much Reddick would have loved the show.

Shotz was simply grateful that "the world got to see him in that iconic role."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Percy Jackson' producers on Season 2, recasting Lance Reddick