Will Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 2 address Zeus' change in appearance? The showrunners give a definitive answer

The marketing campaign for Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 2 is slowly ramping up for its December 2025 release. It has been known for a while that 65-year-old Courtney B. Vance will be taking over Lance Reddick as Zeus. Reddick passed away in March 2023, way before Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 1 began streaming on Disney+.

Now, Entertainment Weekly published an interview on July 22, 2025, in which the makers and cast working on the series went into how Vance's performance as Zeus in Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 2 will honor Lance Reddick's version of the Greek Deity in the first season. Co-showrunner Jonathan E. Steinberg even revealed that the second season won't address the recasting.

The makers justified the decision based on the explanation given in the books.

The Gods present themselves to their half-blood children in different forms, providing a basis for Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 2

The Percy Jackson books routinely feature demigods/half-bloods meeting their Godly parents in different forms. This becomes clear in the fifth book as Percy, for the first time, sees his father, Poseidon, as an old man, as the God of the seas is battling the forces of Titan led by Kronos. This applies to other Gods as well, meaning the makers need not address the change in actors.

Author Rick Riordan, while expressing hope that the recasting felt organic, said this:

"We're not going to spend a lot of time, and I hope that there won't be any need for us to, without giving away too much about how that happens, I think it feels pretty seamless. And there's not going to be a lot of head-scratching about how that's done."

The author and the rest of the cast and crew heaped praises on Courtney B. Vance, hyping up the actor as one of Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 2's highlights. Through this interview, we also learned that Vance's casting was approved by Lance Reddick's wife, Stephanie Reddick.

Walker Scobell further revealed that Stephanie visited the Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 2 set to see Courtney Vance perform:

"Lance's wife came out to watch [Courtney] do the scenes. He did such an amazing job. He honored Lance spectacularly."

The entire cast and crew of season 2 share Walker Scobell's sentiments:

The Percy Jackson and the Olympians crew probably faced their first obstacle on March 17, 2023, as Lance Reddick, the actor who played Zeus, passed away even before the first season began streaming in December of the same year. However, almost a year later, it seems that the crew managed to find an actor who honors Reddick's powerful performance in the season 1 finale.

EP Craig Silverstein spoke about the touching tribute Vance gave to Reddick on the set of Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 2:

"Courtney was so great when he showed up — he made this speech to the cast and crew honoring Lance and saying that he knew what the responsibility was about stepping into the shoes of that performance. And it ended up being very emotional but very, very fulfilling. We were certain we had made the right choice before, but we were really certain when he gave that beautiful speech on the set before stepping in front of the camera."

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