Disney+ will spotlight Season 3 of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” at Italy’s Lucca Comics and Games Festival, where stars Walker Scobell, Leah Sava Jeffries and Aryan Simhadri, and the show’s co-creator and executive producer Jonathan E. Steinberg, and executive producer Dan Shotz will be on hand for a dedicated panel presentation that will include previously unseen footage.
Adapting Rick Riordan’s third book, “The Titan’s Curse,” the third season follows Percy Jackson (Scobell), Grover Underwood (Simhadri) and their fellow campers at Camp Half-Blood — plus some new faces — to save Annabeth Chase (Jeffries) and goddess of the hunt Artemis (Dafne Keen) from the Titan Atlas (Holt McCallany).
Lucca Comics — which will run Oct. 28-Nov. 1 — is a unique geek meet attended by more than 200,000 fans each year and held within the walls of the Tuscan town of Lucca, surrounded by perfectly preserved 16th and 17th century ramparts.
Other highlights of this year’s edition include the presence of Aardman Animations’ founder Peter Lord and director Peter Walker for the Italian premiere of “Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom.”
Japanese filmmaker Kore-eda Hirokazu will be making the trek to Lucca to meet fans and discuss adapting Fujimoto Tatsuki’s manga “Look Back,” which blends live-action realism with the creative process behind the manga genre.
Lucca’s so-called Movie Area section will also see Warner Bros. Pictures Animation launch the latest Dr. Seuss adaptation, “The Cat in the Hat,” with directors Erica Rivinoja and Alessandro Carloni in tow.
Seminal writer-graphic artist Frank Miller, creator of the “Dark Knight” Batman comics series, will be returning to Lucca for a screening of the doc “Frank Miller: American Genius,” made by his creative partner Silenn Thomas, who will also be on hand.
Japanese anime producer Hibiki Minagawa is coming to present the international premiere of Toei Animation’s kiddie film “Star Detective Precure – The Movie!”
Also from Japan, director Naoya Ando will be making the trek to present animated feature “Gintama: Yoshiwara in Flames,” which retells the iconic “Gintama” manga arc with brand-new subplots.
Lucca, an event dedicated to fandom, cosplay, role-playing games and the entire cross-media universe of comics, is increasingly becoming an integral part of the Hollywood studios’ promotional push in Europe, ever since the Movie Area strand started 16 years ago.