Lucasfilm has decided not to move forward with a second season of Disney+'s latest live-action Star Wars series. The news has now been confirmed by both Deadline and THR: The Acolyte has officially been cancelled.
The series, which was created by Leslye Headland (Russian Doll), received mostly positive reviews from critics, but was not as warmly embraced by the fandom, earning just an 18% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
A certain amount of the negative feedback can be attributed to review-bombing, but even so, it's clear that The Acolyte was not one of the more popular Disney+ Star Wars shows.
“It was an easy target,” said one source. “And it hurt the public perception of the show.”
The Acolyte got off to a strong start after its two-episode premiere, generating 4.8M views in its first day on Disney+ to rank as the biggest series premiere on the streamer this year. The show could not keep this momentum going, however.
The season (now series) finale of The Acolyte left quite a few open plot threads, and those that did enjoy the show were looking forward to further exploration of Manny Jacinto's mysterious Sith warrior, Amandla Stenberg's Force-sensitive "twins" Osha and Mae, and the debuting Darth Plagueis.
Whether we'll see these characters again in some other Star Wars project down the line remains to be seen.
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In The Acolyte, an investigation into a shocking crime spree pits a respected Jedi Master (Lee Jung-jae) against a dangerous warrior from his past (Amandla Stenberg). As more clues emerge, they travel down a dark path where sinister forces reveal all is not what it seems.
The series stars Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-jae, Manny Jacinto, Dafne Keen, Charlie Barnett, Jodie Turner-Smith, Rebecca Henderson, Dean-Charles Chapman, Joonas Suotamo, and Carrie-Anne Moss.
Leslye Headland created the series, based on Star Wars by George Lucas, and serves as an executive producer along with Kathleen Kennedy, Simon Emanuel, Jeff F. King and Jason Micallef. Charmaine DeGraté and Kor Adana are the co-executive producers. Rayne Roberts, Damian Anderson, Eileen Shim and Rob Bredow are the producers.
Headland also directed the premiere episodes (Eps. 101 & 102). Directors Kogonada (Eps. 103 & 107), Alex Garcia Lopez (Eps. 104 & 105) and Hanelle Culpepper (Eps. 106 & 108) round out the directing duties on the series.
"I really wanted to tell a story about the Sith," Headland told EW in a recent interview. "That was kind of my dream Star Wars idea. But it felt like the time period to do that in would be something pre-Phantom Menace. That seemed to be the most interesting trajectory for the Sith: How did the Sith go from the Rule of Two and being quote-unquote 'extinct' to Palpatine coming into power without the Jedi knowing about it?"
Award-winning composer Michael Abels, known for his work on Get Out and Us, scored The Acolyte.