Breaking the heart of the Star Wars community, Disney+ has opted to cancel its prequel series, The Acolyte after only one season.
The announcement, confirmed by Deadline on Monday, comes just over a month after the show’s season finale aired, leaving many fans disappointed.
The Acolyte was an expensive show with a first season budget of $180 million and was produced by Lucasfilm.
The series which focused on the Star Wars universe a century before events depicted in George Lucas’ prequel movies was created by Leslye Headland, an Emmy nominated and the first openly queer creator of Star Wars property.
The filming of each of the eight episodes of the series cost approximately $22. 5 million, according to Headland’s comments in May.
It starred Amandla Stenberg as twin sister duo Mae-ho “Mae” Aniseya and Verosha “Osha” Aniseya entangled in various themes of criminality.
Other recognisable names formed the cast which included Carrie-Anne Moss, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Charlie Barnett.
The promising beginning came with the first two episodes Gaining 11.1 million views worldwide within the first five days of the premiere on June 4, the series failed to sustain the ratings and ended on July 16.
Audiences were pretty favourable with The Acolyte being rated 78% as ‘certified fresh’ by Rotten Tomatoes.
Nevertheless, the audience score of the show was significantly lower – 18%; this might have influenced the decision to cancel the series.
The cancellation has drawn much disappointment, especially knowing that the last episode ended with a cliffhanger.
As it stands, users on the site have received the film in a rather polarizing view, with some voicing themselves out about their disappointment with what they saw as a lost move by the Star Wars franchise.
One X user said, “Cancelling The Acolyte is one of the worst decisions ever. It was a series that was finally pushing Star Wars into new, fresh directions and was set up for an even better second season.”
Another said, “So you’re telling me we all have to forget about one of the sickest Star Wars dark side users we’ve gotten in years?”.
On the other hand, some think that the show was cut because of the social media backlash against the show rather than the show’s quality.
One user said, “The Acolyte being cancelled is just another example of toxic internet hate. The show never got a chance to breathe, and half the people hating on it never even watched an episode.”
Fans are left trying to come to terms with the demise of a show which had created a lot of buzz and controversy within the Star Wars franchise.
