Disney+ has reportedly canceled the “Star Wars” series “Acolyte” created by showrunner Leslye Headland — who promised it would be infused with LGBTQ themes — after only one season amid low ratings.
Lucasfilm has opted out of having a second season for the female-centric, Sith-focused series, sources told Deadline. The eight-part series launched on June 4 after scoring numerous glowing headlines that helped it land a strong opening with 4.8 million views in its first day on the streamer with its first two episodes.
However, it struggled with luke-warm reviews and poor ratings, falling out of the top 10 by the third week, the outlet noted. The series remained there until the finale, when it finally cracked into the 10th spot, with 335 million minutes, something that is believed to be the lowest ever for a “Star Wars” series finale, the outlet noted.
‘The Acolyte’ Canceled: No Season 2 For Disney+’s ‘Star Wars’ Series https://t.co/s8duAdwV3W
— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) August 19, 2024
The director previously talked about how her new series wasn’t going to be like what fans have seen in shows like “The Mandalorian” or “Andor.”
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Headland said her new series looked “at the Jedi as an institution, as a concept, as an entity that has amassed a lot of power. And that’s good, I’m not saying that’s wrong.”
“I think you’re seeing the Jedi when they are this very, very large institution – a benevolent one – but they are closer to who they are in the ‘Phantom Menace’ than obviously in the Original Trilogy where you feel like they’re almost extinct,” the director added.
“In a weird way, in the ‘Phantom Menace’ and the Prequel Trilogy, the Jedi outnumber the Sith,” Headland continued. “And then in the Original Trilogy, the Empire outnumber the Jedi, which is why a show based on the ‘bad guys’ is interesting to me. In that era, what does the underdog look like? Even if they’re the bad guy.”
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Before the series aired, Headland’s said that her “Star Wars” series would be “coded queer” like the animated children’s movie “Frozen,” as previously reported.
“When I saw Frozen as a grown a** woman, I cried through the entire movie,” she said at the time. “There was just something about the relationship between the sisters, the like devillainization of the classic kind of fairy tale ‘bad guy,’ you know, the concept of true love being between two sisters and not a heterosexual relationship. It just destroyed me, completely.”
She continued, “And I thought, ‘Gosh, I would love to make something like this, for lack of a better term, Disney.’ Meaning something that like my parents would have allowed me to see when I was younger as a queer person, but I would have been able to understand as a queer person. And I think I would have had a completely different life. And so I really was inspired by it and was like, ‘God, I would love to make a story like this.’”
In 2021, Headland spoke to The Advocate about having representation on “The Acolyte” and fully intending “to allow her own personal experiences as a queer woman shine through in the finished product.”
