Fans of The Acolyte, which still mourn its cancellation, were outraged when it was revealed from Luminate data reporting that the show actually ended up being the second most-watched series on Disney Plus for 2024, second only to Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the adaptation of the famous books.
The Acolyte had 2.7 billion minutes viewed, while Percy Jackson had 3 billion, putting The Acolyte ahead of both Marvel shows, Echo and Agatha All Along. Of course this raises the question among fans, how does Disney’s #2 show of the entire year still end up cancelled?
Fans are not going to like the answer.
The problem is a combination of, surprise, budget, and what appears to be wildly miscalculated estimates about its potential performance by Disney, which were totally unfair to the show which clearly never really had a chance, given this data.
First, these numbers say more about Disney Plus itself being disappointing rather that these shows “underperforming.” The Mandalorian, for instance, did double The Acolyte’s numbers and interest in Star Wars series on D+ has largely declined more generally (Skeleton Crew seems likely to be the least-watched Star Wars series to date, despite being excellent). And in the larger context of the industry, Squid Game season 2 on Netflix has amassed 1.2 billion hours viewed since Christmas while Disney is measuring in minutes.
Then of course, the budget. It’s been well-reported that The Acolyte cost an absurd $180-230 million, making it one of the most expensive per-episode, even per-minute shows in industry history. And it’s also a show where you certainly do not see all that onscreen, with its best moments being a lightsaber fight in fifty square feet of jungle, or two characters talking to each other in a cave.
The expectations from Disney here were, what, exactly? With that budget the show would have had to be Disney’s #1 show of the year by a huge margin, which is a crazy demand for a series that stars A) zero well-known Star Wars characters, B) zero A-list actors and C) is the first series in a centuries-earlier timeline that Star Wars has never tried before onscreen. The expectation should have been that of course this series was going to have lower viewership than Ahsoka or Obi-Wan Kenobi. How could it not?
It very much seems like Disney could have cut the budget into something much more manageable, leaning into the characters of the show rather than flashy special effects for a second season. Instead, they’re abandoning one of its few non-Skywalker era projects and more or less throwing away the idea of adaptation the High Republic, which has been successful in novels and comics and a way to move beyond Skywalker. They have upset a core fanbase who enjoyed the show and wanted to see more of these characters. They have pleased a group of fans who vehemently hated the show week after week, which created an actual industry of outraged YouTube videos accusing of being woke and “lore-breaking” (which it never actually was). The Acolyte was not Disney Plus’ best Star Wars show, certainly, but this whole situation was so mismanaged it’s infuriating, and these numbers only reinforce that.
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