Another death nail in the LucasFilm coffin.
This is a place for all of you to vent out about what went wrong with “The Acolyte.” Variety is reporting that the Disney+/Star Wars series will not be returning for Season 2. It’s been canceled.
The news is not that surprising. “The Acolyte,” of which I only watched a few episodes, did not get strong viewership numbers on Disney+ and was targeted by many Star Wars fanboys, for a variety of reasons, including for its female-centric and diverse cast. However, by all accounts, and what mattered most, was that it wasn’t a quality show.
Depicting the rise of the Sith, roughly 100 years before the events of “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace,” the cancelation news comes as the first season just ended on a cliffhanger and teased several plotlines for a Season 2.
I do feel bad about the hate that was directed towards creator Leslye Headland (“Russian Doll”). She claimed to be a “Star Wars” super fan, but that wasn’t enough reason for people to watch her show. The first episode had high numbers, but viewership kept freefalling as the season went along. The series disappeared from the Nielsen’s charts after its third episode.
It didn’t help that Heyland, who inserted lesbian space witches as characters in the show, made a few dubious comments in the process, including touting that her take was the “gayest Star Wars” ever. She claimed that the season ending battle topped any fight from “The Matrix.” She also admitted having included a key character to the show to “flip classic tropes of hypersexualization.”
“The Acolyte” lead actress, Amandla Stenberg, responded to the fan criticism by blatantly implying that the haters were “silly racists.”
LucasFilm President, Kathleen Kennedy, defended Heyland by saying that “because of the fan base being so male-dominated, [Heyland and company] sometimes get attacked in ways that can be quite personal.”
While Marvel Studios, Pixar, Disney Pictures and even 20th Century Studios have been enjoying a successful comeback this summer movie season, the disastrous tenure of Kathleen Kennedy as LucasFilm president continues.
Lucasfilm is the only Disney studio that hasn’t had a major success in recent years. They have been consistently releasing Disney+ shows with middling reviews and viewership. They haven’t even released a new movie since 2019’s “The Rise of Skywalker.”
With the cancellation of “The Acolyte,” Star Wars is floundering. It doesn’t help that the slate of upcoming films just doesn’t scream “major success” to anybody. I don’t think LucasFilm’s upcoming projects will reinvigorate audiences like “Deadpool 3” or “Inside Out”. Longtime Star Wars fans are checking out of the franchise, interest is at an all-time low and the future looks grim.