Last summer, The Acolyte aired on Disney+. Despite having the highest opening day viewers for a Disney+ show as of its airing, it got review-bombed by a bunch of whiny, racist, incel fanboys (yes, I’m telling you how I really feel) who were big mad that the show had a diverse cast and a queer female showrunner. In my opinion, The Acolyte was pretty good. It got stronger as it went on, and I was looking forward to seeing where it would go in future seasons. After all, Disney stuck by other Star Wars series that didn’t exactly have the strongest starts (Clone Wars, Bad Batch, etc.) but were given a chance to shine because in the Dave Filoni Era, Star Wars shows historically tend to have slow starts.
Sadly, despite having a really strong finish that happened to feature Manny Jacinto’s abs and cameos by Darth Plageuis and Yoda, The Acolyte was canceled after one season. At the time, we were given all of the usual reasons: it was too expensive, the viewers just weren’t there, etc. Interestingly enough, a new report revealed that The Acolyte was actually the second-most-watched show on Disney+ last year. Oh really…
There were few stories with a more disappointing ending in 2024 than The Acolyte — the Star Wars series that was cancelled after one season despite strong reviews. The show even set up multiple threads to pull on in future seasons, including that of Qimir (Manny Jacinto) and Osha (Amandla Stenberg), as well as learning more about Darth Plagueis the Wise, who was teased in the show for the first time in live-action. There have been many conversations surrounding The Acolyte’s cancelation, and while many have said that it was due to the show’s “poor viewership,” new evidence has come to light that discredits this. A new report from Luminate highlighting the year-end movie and TV report showed that The Acolyte was the second-most-watched show on Disney+, falling short of only Percy Jackson and The Olympians but nearly tripling that of Star Wars: The Bad Batch.
The Acolyte finished the year with 2,673 million minutes watched, which was fairly short of Percy Jackson’s 3,070 million minutes watched. The Bad Batch finished the year with only 923 million minutes watched, which was still ahead of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, the most recent series that concluded the year with 914 million minutes watched. However, it’s important to note that the final two episodes of Skeleton Crew were released in 2025, and the show has also barely been out for a month with the finale airing only a couple of weeks ago, which surely contributed to the lower numbers. Rounding out the rest of the top five most-watched Disney+ shows of 2024 were Agatha All Along with 2,284 million minutes viewed, and Echo with 1,537 million minutes viewed.
Not long after the cancelation of The Acolyte, Manny Jacinto spoke with Collider’s own Maggie Lovitt, and told her that the original plan for The Acolyte, according to showrunner and creator Leslye Headland, was “three seasons and a movie.” Star Wars has a lot of movies in development right now, but one for The Acolyte taking place outside the confines of the Skywalker Saga would have been interesting to see. It’s unfortunate for fans of the show that this will likely never come to fruition, but at least there’s yet another piece of solid evidence proving that The Acolyte should have been given a second season.
Look, there are a lot of people out there arguing that although the show was probably harmed by the made up controversy, it was still way too expensive to make and that was the main factor in it not getting renewed. Except, they also have money out the wazoo and a history of giving Star Wars properties a chance to flourish. They’re too big to fail and what was stopping them from setting a more reasonable budget for future seasons?
I think at the end of the day, the thing that really pisses me off the most about this news is that it only confirms what I suspected all along: Disney caved to the worst people on the Internet and used the show’s expensive budget as an out. The a-holes who complained about The Acolyte are the same ones who defended Elno after he did a Nazi salute at Trump’s inauguration. It makes me so angry that I want to cry. I know it’s unlikely, but here’s to hoping for that one-in-a-million shot that’ll change execs minds and give The Acolyte another chance.
The Acolyte was the first star wars show i watched , im not a a big SW fan but the cast was great so i wanted to check it out. It was a little shaky, but really got together in the last parts.
I dont know how the minutes watched worked in Disney+, but maybe if the show lost viewers every episode is the reason it got axed, so they felt like it wouldnt make sense to renew even if alltogether there was lot of minutes watched in the first half of the season or something?
“ ..,at the end of the day, the thing that really pisses me off the most about this news is that it only confirms what I suspected all along: Disney caved to the worst people on the Internet “
They all do this, all the streamers.
I don’t have D+ to begin with so haven’t watched but I was so excited for Manny Jacinto (Jason Mendoza 4ever!) and was bummed when I heard it got cancelled.
my favorite star wars show is Andor with Diego Luna. and Rebel One is my favorite of the movies. i loved andor for it’s practical effects and for where and when it takes place within the star wars universe. i also love that there was a spotlight on mon mothma, one of my favorite characters. luna and andy serkis are absolutely amazing. episodes 9 and 10 are some of the best episodes of television of seen in ages. it’s just a beautiful show with real meaning beyond vader and skywalker. i haven’t seen the acolyte yet, but was very excited about another story within the universe that wasn’t skywalker centric. i still plan on watching it, even though it’s been cancelled. almost all of the shows have been a fail for me, excepting andor and the mandelorian. and i feel the mandelorian isn’t as strong as it was. i was extremely disappointed in the boba fett show. such a let down.
Andor and Rogue One are also my favorite Star Wars content. Acolyte was great, was excited for the story to continue until it was cancelled.
Wish D+ would care about their female and minority viewers. I was the one excitedly playing Star Wars for the first time for my kids, not my husband. Helped my son pick out his Lego Millennium Falcon and Star Wars bedsheets for Christmas. Just like it was my Mom who first watched Star Wars with us, not my Dad.
I love Star Wars. Rogue One and Andor are my favourites of the recent Star Wars offerings. I did not love The Acolyte. I did not find Amandla Stenberg to be particularly compelling. In fact, the sisters were whiny and annoying. It was a chore to keep watching the episodes; by contrast, I romped through Skeleton Crew in three days – I really enjoyed its Goonies in space vibe. I don’t care that The Acolyte was cancelled save for the fact that Manny Jacinto deserves a job.
I’d really love to hear about what happened behind the scenes with the series because all the elements were there for a great show, but the execution is a mess. There are lots of places where things don’t segue properly, which makes me wonder if it was butchered in post. Shame because the idea at the core of it was really cool.
Either way, we know the real reason it was cancelled. Disney wouldn’t care about quality if it was bringing in bank. Same reason so many LGBT+ shows started getting cancelled 2-3 years back. A lot of us saw the red flags early.
I liked the show. You’re right, it only got better and better. I loved the female actresses plus Manny. And I liked the tone of it and loved the perspective, and it kept being rounded out, not just seen through the lens of wrapping everything up in a 40 min span. So props to the directer Leslye headland. 3 seasons and a movie, that is why they must bring it back. That is a full arc and vision. APple tv wouldve had more faith in the vision and viewership.
Jodie turner-smith was also really good in it.
Executives who sign on knowing the plan and shut it down so close to the last show airing of the 1st season are too eager to impress a subset of the viewing audience and or frightened. Weak weak weak.