Searches for The Acolyte merchandise on the official Disney store are now coming up empty, causing speculation that it has all been intentionally pulled. This comes after the Disney+ series sudden cancelation after just one season.
This is another obvious blow to the fans of the series who held an unsuccessful online campaign to see the show get a second season. The show was very divisive during its run, being subjected to a review bombing campaign while receiving generally favorable reviews by critics on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. While the show had exceptional viewership during its premiere, gaining 4.8 million views on its first day and making it the biggest streaming debut of the year for Disney+, it quickly lost steam, falling out of Disney+’s top-viewed series’ before getting another spike for its season finale. The show is believed to have the lowest viewership for a series finale of any Star Wars show.
Disney Stepping Back
The Acolyte follows in a line of Star Wars properties whose divisiveness among fans brought about their quick end and distancing from Disney. Solo: A Star Wars Story faced a low turnout when it premiered in theaters back in 2018. After earning $213.8 million at the domestic box office on a $275 million budget, Disney and Lucasfilm put on hold any ideas for a sequel to the film and stopped any plans for more anthology-style Star Wars movies in the future. Alden Ehrenreich, who played Han Solo in the film, has said that he did sign a contract to appear as Solo in two more films, while director Ron Howard has said that a sequel is in the hands of the fans. The Rise of Skywalker also saw Disney take a similar step back after the movie received a poor critical reception. After releasing one every year from 2015 to 2019, Disney has yet to release a new Star Wars film in theaters since.