‘Star Wars: The Acolyte’ has recently been in the media spotlight, but not for favorable reasons. After airing 8 episodes, the show was canceled, with Lucasfilm and Disney remaining tight-lipped about the specifics. However, insiders suggest that the cancellation was driven by the show’s high budget and low viewership.
Even before its release and subsequent cancellation, the show was highly controversial, and given its troubled state, the cancellation came as little surprise to many.
Even Amandla Stenberg, who starred as twins Osha and Mae, expressed little surprise at the show’s cancellation, citing the “bigotry, vitriol, and hatred” surrounding it.
While ‘The Acolyte’ demonstrated that neglect can lead to a show being pulled and discontinued, it also highlighted that a significant number of fans were ready to support the show, particularly in terms of the social movement it sparked.
Shortly after the cancellation news broke, a petition was launched on Change.org to renew the show, and as of this writing, over 57,000 fans have signed it.
In the past, fan campaigns have led to other shows being picked up by different studios. However, it is highly unlikely that Disney would be willing to sell the IP. The alternative would be for fans to finance the show themselves, but with a hefty $180M budget, even a massive crowdfunding effort seems improbable.
The final option is for the studio to renew ‘The Acolyte,’ but given Disney’s recent financial struggles across its franchises, convincing them to invest further in unprofitable projects will be a tough sell. CEO Bob Iger has already announced a reduction in creative output for the MCU, and the upcoming Star Wars release slate also indicates fewer projects in the pipeline.
The more signatures the petition to renew ‘The Acolyte’ gathers, the better its chances for revival, even though those chances remain slim.
On the flip side, a petition to de-canonize ‘The Acolyte’ has also been launched on Change.org, but it currently has only 518 signatures. This indicates that while the show might not have captured intense dislike, it also failed to generate significant interest.
It’s unlikely that Disney will de-canonize ‘The Acolyte,’ as there is little to disconnect from the broader Star Wars universe. The show did not link directly to the prequel trilogy, and any discrepancies with ‘The Phantom Menace’ were easily explained by the lack of surviving witnesses to Sith Lord Qimir.
De-canonizing the show would be regrettable, especially since Qimir was a notable addition to the franchise. If the studio revisits the High Republic era, it would be great to see more of him—and potentially Darth Plagueis as well.
What are your thoughts? Share them in the comments below!
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