Disney made a mistake canceling The Acolyte; the show is demonstrating remarkable longevity, with Parrot Analytics measuring strong online demand. It seems the news is reaching the stars themselves.

Rebecca Henderson posted an Instagram story in which she expressed for the show. "The Acolyte has been a massive hit for Disney+," she notes. "It was canceled because IYKYK but the fans love it and we love you." She's clearly alluding to the initial backlash The Acolyte received, which was accompanied by an absurd review bombing campaign (review bombers accidentally critiqued other movies and TV episodes with "Acolyte" in the title).

Why Did Disney Cancel The Acolyte?

The Situation Is A Complex One

It must be noted that initial viewership of The Acolyte was not good. "The Acolyte... had lower viewership than most of the other Star Wars shows when it premiered, and then it didn't gain viewership," Jimmy Doyle, Director and Film & TV analyst at Luminate, told ScreenRant in a 2024 review of Star Wars. "The Acolyte was really the first one that I think you would say is legitimately poor performance comparative to the other Star Wars shows," he added.

But the continued demand for The Acolyte is significant, because it suggests viewers are still headed to Disney+ to check it out. No doubt some are repeat viewers - there's a committed fanbase pushing the #RenewTheAcolyte hashtag - but many will surely be new viewers. Parrot Analytics currently measure the show as having "outstanding" demand, putting it in the top 2.7% of TV shows in the US.

Our Take On The Acolyte

With hindsight, though, it does look as though Disney made a mistake canceling The Acolyte. The show was controversial for all the wrong reasons, with accusations that it was "woke" long before it had even released; old quotes from cast and crew were pulled out of context and used to savage it. YouTubers seemed to realize they could get a lot of mileage out of attacking The Acolyte, and some of the controversies were absurd (I refused to believe anybody cared about Ki-Adi-Mundi's age). The fandom was left feeling quite broken after The Acolyte, and the cancelation didn't help.

Henderson clearly feels this backlash was the real reason The Acolyte was canceled, rather than viewership. Certainly it must be noted that Disney went quiet in the face of the backlash, a fact that hasn't been lost on the fandom. If that is indeed the case, if the vocal review bombing campaign had more of an impact than we thought, then it's a real shame.

Source: Rebecca Henderson (via Star Wars Holocron)