Early this week, Deadline announced that they were told The Acolyte Season 2 was cancelled. They reported that there are no future plans for the series and they will leave it behind. The article doesn’t specify who their sources are nor the definitive reason it has been cancelled, but what could those reasons be? I’ve got two ideas: the business reasons and the reactionary reasons.
The current streaming landscape is all about numbers. Every show has to break records and have everyone watching for it to be deemed a success. This is a high bar to reach for any show, but The Acolyte started on the right foot. The series had the largest number of viewers for its premiere for a Disney+ Star Wars show and was doing well. Unfortunately, it couldn’t keep those numbers as the viewership dropped each episode, which didn't help the chances of a Season 2 happening. The other business reason is this show was bloody expensive to make. It cost $180M for its eight episodes ($22M per episode), which is more money than my family will see in a lifetime, and is just ridiculous. And with that budget, you’d expect massive success with the viewers, but as the viewership decreased dramatically by the end, they might’ve thought it wasn’t worth it.
I will point out that these issues aren’t exclusive to The Acolyte and can be found in nearly every big TV and film release. Budgets are getting bigger and bigger, and the expectations placed on these projects to do well reflect that. Take The Marvels, for example, which also cost an eye-watering amount of money. Even though it did decently with critics and made a respectable amount of money at the box office, that massive budget meant it had to be the next Avatar to even come close to being profitable. The same goes for The Acolyte, which would never meet the massive expectations. Studios need to control these budgets, or soon no project will be a success in their eyes.
But it’s not just business reasons why The Acolyte could be cancelled; certain “fans” didn’t help at all.
If you paid any attention to the online discourse during the months The Acolyte was airing, you know it was a cesspit of negativity and hate. People on social media were constantly saying this show was the worst thing to exist and that it ruined their childhood blah blah blah. This was made worse by certain people using their online platforms to shit on every little thing the show did, even before it came out. I have never seen such a massive amount of hate directed towards any TV show since Reva from Obi-Wan Kenobi, especially when a lot of it came across as racist and misogynistic bullshit.
Now, the show wasn’t perfect and had its fair share of problems, but that wasn’t what these lobotomised jackasses would complain about. No, they would get pissy because a white guy wasn’t the main character, the show broke lore (it didn’t), they had an all-female witch cult (Nightsisters did it a decade ago), and so on. Every week, they would pick a random part of the show, scream bloody murder, and insult anyone who said they liked the show (or just didn’t hate it). And if you said anything positive, you were labelled a Disney shill, and you must’ve been paid to say that because their opinion (that they’re totally not copying from a YouTuber they watch) is right.
And again, there are valid criticisms of the show, but when all you can come up with is that the writing sucks because it’s woke trash, and how dare they have women in Star Wars, or why is there no white guy, I’m just going to assume you have the mental maturity of a hamster (and that’s an insult to the hamster). Are these dickheads the main reason The Acolyte is cancelled? I doubt it. But to think that their constant bitching had no impact would be naïve. The consistency and volume of their screeching undoubtedly played a part.
At this point, only Deadline has reported that The Acolyte has been cancelled. Other outlets are using that report as the basis of their articles, but we still don’t know who their source was. For all we know, it could be someone who has an uncle who works for Disney and gave Deadline the inside scoop. Until Disney or Lucasfilm releases an official statement confirming this news or other outlets can corroborate the sources, I’m taking everything with a grain of salt. Disney also recently announced several books and comics that involve characters from The Acolyte, and the covers have the series branding. I think it would be a little counterintuitive to push these books, whilst simultaneously canning the show they’re based on. They also brought Manny Jacinto (Qimir) on stage at D23 to talk about the show, which makes this situation feel a bit off. Time will tell whether this news is true or not, but right now, we can only wait.
If The Acolyte is truly cancelled, that would be a real shame. Not only because there are so many ways the story could’ve progressed and expanded on Star Wars lore, but it also sets a precedent for Star Wars going forward. If the first show to take place away from the Skywalkers wasn’t given a proper chance, does that mean we’ll only get the same type of Star Wars content forever now? No risks? No innovation? Just the same stuff that appeals to the jackasses who bitch and moan?
We’ll have to wait and see, but in the meantime, if you want to read some positive stuff about The Acolyte, you can check out my review of Season 1 here. You can also read why Tim thinks a Season 2 should happen here. And for all your other Star Wars needs, keep it locked to Couch Soup.
What do you think about The Acolyte cancellation? Are you happy or upset? Did you like the first season? Let us know in the comments where we can talk all things Star Wars.
