Disney+ will bring the stars of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” to Italy’s Lucca Comics and Games next week to preview the show’s third season, which streams Nov. 20. Walker Scobell, Leah Sava Jeffries and Aryan Simhadri, who play Percy, Annabeth and Grover, will join co-creator Jonathan E. Steinberg and executive producer Dan Shotz for a panel. The presentation will include footage no one has seen. The festival runs Oct. 28 through Nov. 1 and draws more than 200,000 fans each year to the Tuscan town’s preserved 16th- and 17th-century ramparts.
The season adapts the third Rick Riordan novel, “The Titan’s Curse.” Percy, Grover and their fellow campers at Camp Half-Blood set out to rescue Annabeth and the goddess Artemis, played by Dafne Keen, from the Titan Atlas, played by Holt McCallany. The show expands Nico’s role beyond the novel, which largely keeps him at camp while Bianca joins Percy’s quest. Scobell has said the adaptation will spend time away from Percy’s perspective, showing events at camp as the mission unfolds elsewhere.
Lucca is Europe’s largest pop culture festival, and its organizers describe it as a growing stop for studios. Cova, who runs film and TV for organizer Geek Meet, said the festival has become a fixture on the global promotional circuit for studios and streamers. He called the Disney tour a source of pride and said the stars want to “get up close and personal” with fans. The choice reflects a wider shift. Studios increasingly launch franchises at fan conventions rather than relying on traditional film festivals.
The festival lineup extends past Disney. Japanese director Kore-eda Hirokazu will discuss adapting Fujimoto Tatsuki’s manga “Look Back,” and Frank Miller will attend a screening of the documentary “Frank Miller: American Genius.”
The Lucca stop continues a promotional push for a franchise that has built an audience since its 2023 debut. The Disney+ series has run two seasons and 16 episodes so far, with Scobell in the title role since his casting in January 2022. Disney has already released a season three trailer and confirmed the November date. The footage shown in Italy will give fans a second look at the story before it arrives on Disney+.
