Percy Jackson and the Olympians executive producer Becky Riordan is once again at the center of fan backlash, this time over comments suggesting she’s “surprised” adult fans even want to watch the show, the same adult fans who grew up reading the books and made the Disney+ series possible in the first place.
The comments come as the Season 2 finale from back in January quietly failed to chart on Nielsen at all, capping off a season-long viewership collapse that saw episodes drop as much as 41% from Season 1.
“Surprised How Many Adult Fans Want To See These Kids Fight”
Responding on Threads to a fan arguing Season 3 “needs to be more action packed and fantastical in order to do the story justice,” Riordan — wife of author Rick Riordan and an executive producer on the series — teased what’s coming while taking a swipe at the show’s older audience.
“Lots of fight scenes, some with humor and others with dire stakes. They look great. I think you will be pleased. I have been honestly surprised how many adult fans want to see these kids and young people fight.”
The remark didn’t land well. A thread on the Percy Jackson TV subreddit quickly filled with fans pointing out the obvious: the books launched in 2005, meaning the original readers are now deep into their twenties and thirties.
Those are the fans whose loyalty got the series greenlit after two failed movies, and it’s not the first time Becky Riordan has framed the show as something adult fans shouldn’t expect to be served by.
It echoes the dismissive posture Rick Riordan took toward fans who complained about changes to Annabeth Chase, when the author flat-out labeled critics of the casting racists.
In the same Threads exchange, Riordan also admitted she “fought for Percy not to become a magical makeover story,” saying she and the showrunners “used the word grounded (in the real world) a lot,” a candid explanation for why fans keep complaining the gods feel muted in a series Disney itself bills as fantasy. She made the comments while explaining why she “hated” Daredevil: Born Again.
Becky Riordan Says Percy Did “Exceptionally Well” — Nielsen Says Otherwise
In a different exchange, a fan asked Riordan point blank whether Disney was unhappy with the Season 2 ratings and whether a Season 4 writers’ room exists. Her answer:
“There are no answers to the questions. About numbers though… Percy did exceptionally well on the streaming platform compared to other shows on the platform. Y’all did that, for which we are very grateful. I hope you enjoy S3. Not only is the season exciting, the sets are amazing and the filming top notch.”
The problem: the only public measurement we have tells a very different story.
Riordan’s “exceptionally well” claim apparently leans on internal Disney+ data that no one outside the company can verify. Nielsen’s numbers, which Disney+ enables by default on user accounts, show Season 2 bleeding viewers week after week:
- Season 1 Episodes 1 & 2: 572 million minutes / Season 2 Episodes 1 & 2: 508 million minutes
- Season 1 Episode 3: 700 million minutes / Season 2 Episode 3: 410 million minutes (a 41% drop)
- Season 2 Episode 4: 436 million minutes
- Season 1 finale: 575 million minutes / Season 2 finale: failed to chart
The Season 2 Finale Never Made The Nielsen Chart
The Season 2 finale was released on January 21, 2026, but when Nielsen published its Top 10 Original Series chart for the week of January 19-25, Percy Jackson was nowhere to be found.
The #10 spot went to Netflix’s The Upshaws with 416 million minutes, meaning the Percy Jackson finale came in somewhere under that figure.
Compare that to the Season 1 finale’s 575 million minutes, and the “exceptionally well” framing gets harder to square.
The finale week is supposed to be the bump. Instead, the show vanished, the same fate that just befell Daredevil: Born Again, which went 0-for-17 on Nielsen with no finale bump.
A show, by the way, that Riordan herself trashed — saying she couldn’t get through a single episode.
Season 3 Is Coming — Season 4 Is Anyone’s Guess
To be clear, Season 3 is safe. Disney+ preemptively renewed the show back in March 2025, before Season 2 even premiered, with the new season adapting The Titan’s Curse and currently filming in Vancouver ahead of an expected late-2026 release.
Season 4 is a different story. There has been no official renewal, and Riordan’s “there are no answers” non-answer about a Season 4 writers’ room won’t calm fans already debating whether the show’s future is in doubt.
The cast has talked openly about wanting all five books adapted, but with Season 2’s Nielsen trajectory — and a finale that couldn’t crack 416 million minutes — Disney’s preemptive-renewal generosity may have run out.
Season 3 may indeed deliver the “mini movies” Riordan is promising. But if the adult fans she’s so surprised by decide they’ve been told enough times the show isn’t for them, the numbers problem only gets worse.
