Featured Image Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd.
Topics: Disney, Star Wars, Film and TV
Yasmeen Hamadeh
Disney is reportedly not advancing with a new season of Star Wars spinoff The Acolyte.
The show premiered on Disney+ on June 4, 2024, and followed a former Padwan who reunites with her Jedi Master to investigate a series of crimes that unravel a threat far more sinister than they anticipated.
Although the series wrapped up a little over a month ago, Deadline reports that sources have come to a decision to not renew the show for a second season.
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While the news seems to come on a precipice of Disney canceling a slew of content and reshaping their roster for the next few years, The Acolyte was in fact received with mixed reviews.
It earned a mark of approval from critics with a 78 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes but ultimately didn't land quite as well with Star Wars fans.
The Acolyte reportedly earned 4.8 million views in its first day of streaming, and proceeded to debut on Nielsen's Top 10 originals charts in its premiere week.
While it initially climbed up, The Acolyte's momentum soon faltered after its third week and is believed to have garnered the lowest viewership for a Star Wars series finale.
Disney+ has a high benchmark for viewership that needs to be retained for a show costing over $100 million to make. Considering The Acolyte's high-production cost, it's likely the show failed to meet the necessary viewership requirements needed for a renewal.
Fans online seem to be divided over the decision.
One user on Twitter wrote: "Show gave us the most exciting villain since Kylo Ren and some of the freshest lightsaber action in ages and they cancel it instead of maybe retooling the stuff that didn't work? Really bummed about this."
Another believed the decision was expected writing: "Not a shock here…they did this to themselves. The weekly release schedule absolutely killed them.
"It gave everyone and their mother a chance to s**t on each episode individually. Also, the story as a whole was meh at best."
"Show had so much potential. I really want that era of Star Wars explored more, but the show just suffered from really poor writing for most of the episode. Sorry to the people that wanted a [Season 2] though," added another.
The Acolyte starred Amandla Stenberg in its lead role alongside Squid Game's Lee Jung-jae, Manny Jacinto, and Jodie Turner-Smith.