‘The Acolyte’ won’t continue. Lucasfilm decided not to make a second season, according to Deadline.
The news comes over a month after the first season of the show, created and run by Leslye Headland, ended on Disney+. The news isn’t a big shock. ‘The Acolyte’ had mixed reviews from critics with a 78% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and split opinions among ‘Star Wars’ fans, which showed in its viewership.
‘The Acolyte’ started strong when it launched on June 4 with two episodes. It got 4.8 million views on its first day, making it the top series premiere on Disney+ this year. After five days, it reached 11.1 million global views. The series also made it to No. 7 on Nielsen’s Top 10 chart in its first week and moved up to No. 6 the next week.
The show couldn’t keep up its early success. It fell out of the Top 10 in Week 3 and only returned at No. 10 after the finale, which had 335 million minutes viewed—thought to be the lowest for a ‘Star Wars’ finale.
Like Netflix and Prime Video, Disney+ needs very high viewership to renew expensive shows that cost over $100 million per season. After the last episode of Season 1, the show got bad reviews, but fans were still hopeful.
They started an online campaign with the hashtag #RenewTheAcolyte and asked for more episodes. “#RenewTheAcolyte because we need more scenes like this,” one fan wrote. “I loved seeing all the Jedi fight scenes. Please, there’s so much story to tell.”
Another one added, “Bring these soulmates back to me. I can’t do with only 8 episodes of this show.” The showrunner Leslye Headland also noted, “I think you should put everything you can into the first season and give the audience a nice resolution that feels satisfying, but enough nods to mysteries that you would want to see a second season.”
‘The Acolyte’ was a mystery-thriller set in a galaxy full of dark secrets during the last days of the High Republic era. A former Padawan teams up with her Jedi Master to solve a series of crimes. They find out that the threats they face are much darker than they expected.
