Remember when “The Acolyte” star Amandla Stenberg blamed the show’s cancellation on “hyper-conservative bigotry and vitriol, prejudice, hatred”? That’s actually what she said.
Keeping quiet amidst all the drama was ‘Acolyte’ showrunner Leslye Headland. She claimed to be a “Star Wars” super fan and didn’t want to comment on anything — that is, until now — and she’s using the same blaming card as Stenberg.
In her first major interview since “The Acolyte” was pulled from Disney+, Headland will surely reignite controversy with her remarks, which culminate in her labeling a portion of the fanbase as “fascists and racists.” Speaking about the show’s detractors, which she seems to believe only came from YouTube, she said:
There are some of them that I respect, and there are some of them that I think are absolutely snake oil salesmen, just opportunists. Then, of course, there are the fascists and racists.
Despite all the drama surrounding the show’, Headland still believes it never had the chance to reach the audience it was truly built for. As she put it: “I feel like, for a launch of a first-season show that was trying different things, I think it could have been worth it to allow the audience it was meant for to find it. But that wasn’t up to me.”
You can bet that if “The Acolyte” was any good, or had high viewership numbers, then Disney would have never pulled the plug on it. “It’s as simple as that,” critics say. The fact was that “The Acolyte” was not as popular as “Andor” and it certainly didn’t come anywhere near the numbers for “The Mandalorian.”
Things actually started off fairly well for the series: the first episode had high numbers, but viewership kept freefalling as the season went along. The series disappeared from Nielsen’s charts after its third episode. It just didn’t click with people.
It certainly didn’t help that “The Acolyte” was one of the most expensive shows ever conceived for Disney+, with the first season costing $230 million (via Forbes) — that’s $50 million more than the “Dune 2” budget. Who in their right mind would not cancel such a show after mediocre ratings?
As always, it’s much more nuanced than just “fascists” or “racists.” It comes down to the most important thing: quality.