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Sadly, The Acolyte has been canceled by Disney+ after just one season. The Acolyte was the first Star Wars series to have a female showrunner, Leslye Headland, and when it debuted, it had the highest opening day viewership for a Disney+ show in 2024. Taking place around 100 years before the events in the original Skywalker saga movies, it starred Amandla Stenberg, Manny Jacinto, Lee Jung-jae, Charlie Barnett, Carrie-Ann Moss, and Rebecca Henderson. Despite its strong start and good critic reviews, viewership for The Acolyte dropped after its third week.
Unfortunately, because of its queer female showrunner, diverse cast, and daringness to tell a new story, The Acolyte was frequently attacked by the toxic fanboys who need to stop thinking a Star Wars property is only created for them.. These douchebags organized a review bomb campaign on Rotten Tomatoes, went after a female editor on the online website Wookiepedia, and aimed racist attacks at Stenberg. It looks like these a-holes have once again gotten their way because we’ll never get a chance to find out Jacinto’s Qimir’s backstory or what happened in the Ghost of Jedi Past.
The news is not entirely surprising. The Acolyte did OK with critics, with 78% on Rotten Tomatoes, but divided Star Wars fans, which was reflected in its overall viewership. Driven by interest into the venerable space franchise, The Acolyte got off to a strong start when it launched June 4 with two episodes, generating 4.8M views in its first day on the streamer to rank as the biggest series premiere on Disney+ this year. The tally rose to 11.1 million views globally after five days of streaming. Corroborating Disney’s data, the series made its debut on Nielsen’s Top 10 originals chart in its premiere week at No. 7 (488 million minutes viewed), climbing to No. 6 the following week.
But The Acolyte could not sustain the momentum, dropping out of the Top 10 in Week 3 and staying off before returning at No. 10 after the release of the finale (335M minutes, believed to be the lowest for a Star Wars series finale). Like fellow global streamers Netflix and Prime Video, Disney+ has a high viewership threshold for renewing high-end, big-budget series that cost well above $100M per season to make.
In interviews, Headland has revealed that she had pitched her ideas for a second season, sharing her hopes for a renewal. Lucasfilm’s first — and most successful to date — Disney+ series, The Mandalorian, is carrying on, crossing over to features with the upcoming The Mandalorian & Grogu. Ahsoka, the company’s series that proceeded The Acolyte, has been renewed for a second season.
The Acolyte was a mystery-thriller that took viewers into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark-side powers in the final days of the High Republic era. A former Padawan reunites with her Jedi Master to investigate a series of crimes, but the forces they confront are more sinister than they ever anticipated.
I’m pretty bummed out about this news. I refuse to link to it, but one mouthy YouTube account in particular has been gloating hard about taking down the “woke” Star Wars, ugh. F-ck them. I know that beyond the toxic fanboys, there were mixed reviews from fans, but most of those complaints were about the pacing in the earlier eps and that Osha and Mae weren’t as compelling as other characters. I’ll grant that like most Star Wars series, The Acolyte started off slowly, but it really picked up midway and ended strongly. The Clone Wars sucked its first season, but it got a chance to grow into one of the best Star Wars properties out there. And not that it matters, but just to pad my argument, other examples of TV shows with bad first seasons that were given a chance are the US version of The Office and Parks and Recreation. And yes, yes, I know a Star Wars series is a lot more expensive to make, but they’ve got Disney money.
Anyway, I’m just really disappointed. I was excited to see where the story would go from there, especially with the Osha/Qimir pairing and the reveal of Darth Plagueis. My main gripe here is that when it came down to it, Disney just pulled the plug on one of the more interesting Star Wars shows they’ve had since Andor rather than giving it a chance to really grow and flourish. And since Disney and Lucasfilm has a history of listening to its louder, more toxic members, it really does feel like they’re once again catering to them, which is a shame. It may please a specific group of fans, but it will only hurt them in the long run.
