The die is cast: The Acolyte, the sequel to the latest series from the Star Wars universe, has been canceled. A decision announced by Disney barely a month after the last episode aired on its streaming platform. And while the entertainment giant has not offered any justification, it goes without saying that the ratings results must be mediocre, as confirmed by internal sources interviewed by the Hollywood Reporter.
Critics had rather well received this new intergalactic escapade, but the public clearly shunned it, when they did not outright attack it for its progressiveness in terms of writing and casting. Indeed, a certain fringe of the Web did not hesitate to call the series “woke”, whether for the diversity of its casting, or because of its creator, Leslye Headland, who is a member of the LGBTQ+ community.
Exhausted
“I honestly feel sad that people would assume that if something is gay, it must be bad,” Headland said in an interview with Hollywood Reporter last June. “I am saddened that a group of people on the Internet could dismantle what I consider to be the most important work of art I have ever made.”
Unfortunately, the case of The Acolyte could push Disney to take fewer and fewer risks to avoid this kind of controversy. Although we must wonder if the public turned away from the series for ideological reasons, or simply out of weariness with a Star Wars universe that the studio seems determined to wring out to its last galaxy.
