The Acolyte has quickly become one of the most controversial Disney Plus Star Wars projects in the entire era, right up there with The Last Jedi. But all the hate and/or support aside, there is a simple question: Will The Acolyte get a season 2?
Ever since the last few excellent episodes I have gone from mixed on the show to a supporter, and no matter what happens in the finale, I’d like to see it continue. But I have to admit that seems exceedingly unlikely based on what we know.
No, it’s not about the show being woke or it being bashed by Star Wars YouTubers and their audiences. Rather, it’s pretty simple: Cost versus viewership.
Estimates of the cost of The Acolyte put it at $180 million for what are effectively eight, thirty minute episodes. That’s an absolutely wild amount of money for a Star Wars thing that is nowhere near theaters, but rather the sixth Disney live-action Star Wars series instead. And while I think the show has a solid aesthetic, no, it does not look like a $180 million production, and you have to wonder where much of that money went.
Then there’s viewership, where if it was a breakout smash hit, it might be worth spending that for another season. But it’s just not there, based on what we know. Disney does not give out official numbers but Nielsen says its premiere was half the viewership of Ahsoka and 75% lower than The Mandalorian. Reportedly, it’s the second-least watched show, also behind The Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan. I cannot imagine it surged in popularity from there.
Before you say “well it’s just so bad, that’s why viewership is low,” you should know the least-watched show is Andor, universally praised as one of the best things in Star Wars history, even past the Disney era. It did in fact get a season 2, however, on a reported $250 million budget. Disney might have been okay doing that once given the sky-high reviews and massive praise for it, but The Acolyte certainly doesn’t have that, and no one is saying it’s anywhere close to the quality level of Andor.
How tf is Andor the least watched Star Wars Disney+ show?? Maybe viewers is the wrong metric we should be measuring.
Thinking about it, I wonder if things like vpn use and other things like that affect the metrics at all. Maybe there are actually a significant number of piraters because of how much hate there is for Disney, but people still want to see it so they can complain about it. I don’t know, but it’s extremely surprising Andor is so low. It’s some of the best SW we’ve had in a while.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I thought Rogue One was garbage and couldn’t be less interested in Andor’s backstory.
When it came out that the showrunner was the guy who said his secret power was he never liked Star Wars and wanted to remove all references to classic Star Wars from the show I was like “Well, great, go make something not called ‘Star Wars’ then.”
Then don’t watch it for Star Wars continuity. Watch it because it’s an amazing show that is deeply meaningful and a perfect antifascist exposé
Not interested. If he wanted to do a show about that, then by all means, feel free to do it outside the Star Wars wrapper.
Well, then you are lost!
and you have to wonder where much of that money went.
Not into the script…
Not into promoting the series. My kids are huge Star Wars fans, yet hadn’t heard that it existed until I asked if they wanted to watch it.
Then there’s the way they treated Trinity …
I’ll be honest, I hated Acolyte at first. I decided to keep watching, since I hated the first three episodes of Andor but it got really good later on. I’ve been enjoying the story so far in Acolyte, but it has so many flaws that it’s really difficult to love.
The biggest issues to me were the stilted dialogue, trying to shoehorn in a kung-fu gimmick that makes no sense, and the fact that the show constantly not only goes against Star Wars canon, but can’t seem to even keep its own facts straight within the context of the show itself.
I think what frustrates me the most is that I can tell there is a great story going on and it just seems to constantly be getting lost under a mountain of junk to make the snow more marketable. It’s like someone at some point wrote a great Star Wars story and then 30 other writers all tried to add stuff to it.
I really do enjoy the story though, and I think all of the actors are well suited to their roles.
If they do make a second season I would probably still watch at least the first few episodes if not the whole thing though. Especially if they fix some of the problems the first season has had.
Thanks for that response. I’m still in those first few episodes, wondering if it’s worth sitting through more
They start to drop a lot of the kung-fu stuff by the third or fourth episode and focus more on the story. To me personally it seems like it’s getting a lot better as it goes but there are still some glaring issues with it
I just can’t get into Force witches. The Force is such a simple concept - you become one with your environment - and sometimes produce lightning from your fingers. Force witches and spells just degrade it all into traditional halloweenesque bullshit with no rules. It’s on the same level as midichlorians for me.
I like the idea of other groups tapping into the Force in their own ways, I’d have just liked to have seen something a bit different as we already have the Nightsisters (especially hard on the back of them being key in Ahsoka) and they actually had to explain they are not those Force witches but another lot. It would have been a lot more interesting to show them as neutral (as they are definitely pitched as being on the naughty side) which would have made the Jedi interfering seem even worse.
Just completely burned out of the over saturation. Not just Star Wars either, Star Trek, Marvel, DC, etc. just too many shot gun approaches and not enough focused well written content.
So the few Gems that do get made I haven’t even paid any attention because I’m just so done.
I just really have no desire to keep up with the mountain of mediocre just to find a few diamonds in the rough.
$180 million for a 4 hour Star Wars project doesn’t seem out of line to me.
As far as viewership goes, I wonder how many people are like me? I watched the first two episodes, went “this is fine”, then noped out until all eight episodes are available.
Once the show is actually completed, I expect viewership will go up.
I don’t know, it does seem excessive to me. For contrast the second Dune movie was made on roughly a bit more money, for three hours of movie runtime and made back 4 times it’s budget domestically and more overseas.
Another one is House of the dragon, which is allegedly $20 million per episode, which is roughly 200 million for a bit under 10 hours which include rather expensive CGI dragons and is the jewel of the HBO crown, driving new subscriptions and cable deals.
This seems like Disney misspent their money. In general I think Disney has mismanaged the Star Wars property.
While I am enjoying it, I haven’t seen anything in The Acolyte yet that would validate having a second season.
Just that elements of it will likely feed into other High Republic-era media.
They give a few good reasons why it might get a season 2 and I think they are more important than sheer numbers - Leslye Headland does have more story to tell and is going.to.fight hard for this and Disney are all in on the High Republic - the Acolyte may be more recent than the other HR media but it’s placement is key as it bridges that period and the GR, with the opportunity to drop in key building blocks of the.period (we know Yoda is around and there are two actual Sith Lords beavering away in.the background - the unknown planet may be a link.to.the Darth Plagueis books). So I think these reasons are why I’m optimistic.
I’m tired of the building blocks. I like Star Wars when it is not made to shoehorn old elements. I want new lore.
