The Acolyte‘s cancelation is sadly fully explained by new viewership data from Luminate. Helmed by Russian Doll creator Leslye Headland, The Acolyte proved remarkably controversial; a review-bombing campaign even wound up accidentally targeting the wrong show on Rotten Tomatoes. The Acolyte was officially canceled in August last year, and it was two months before Disney addressed this, suggesting the decision was made due to performance against cost.
Streaming services are notoriously reluctant to reveal actual performance metrics, but Luminate has given an indication of the show’s problems in a 2024 end-of-year-review. “While mixed fan reactions were likely a factor, viewership for the show had waned, with significant decreases after the first two episodes and into the finale,” Luminate note. That’s easy to see, given the report also includes a chart showing how viewership dropped off.
We Can Now See Just Why The Acolyte Was Canceled
Viewership just wasn’t strong enough
The pattern in that graph is pretty shocking, showing declining viewership over the course of the show’s run. It’s not unusual to see some kind of decline; there’s always a degree of churn, as some viewers get distracted by life (or other TV shows) and run behind. But the scale is remarkable, with a catastrophic drop to below 1,000,000 views of The Acolyte‘s ending on release day. That’s surely not just poor word-of-mouth or a review bombing campaign; people were actively switching off.
The Acolyte‘s action-packed episode 5 was a step in the right direction, with a much shallower drop – likely positive word-of-mouth leading to people coming back to check it out. That even translated into initial increases in viewership for episode 6, but the drop there is shockingly steep, suggesting that episode just didn’t maintain engagement. The Acolyte‘s $230 million budget meant the show needed to perform much better.
Our Take On The Acolyte’s Cancelation
A disappointing moment for Lucasfilm
The Acolyte was far from perfect, but it nevertheless deserved better than this. Unfortunately, the TV show released at a time when – as Luminate note – engagement with every major streaming franchise was lower. The MCU’s Echo and Agatha All Along both underperformed, while Amazon’s The Rings of Power season 2 saw a 60% decrease in total minutes watched from the show’s first season. The Acolyte was facing strong headwinds, made worse by the backlash and review-bombing campaign.
Sadly, Luminate also point out that Star Wars: Skeleton Crew also hasn’t had the best performance. That doesn’t necessarily rule out a second season; there’s a different viewership pattern, and positive word-of-mouth seems to be bolstering Lucasfilm’s latest show. Even better, Skeleton Crew has nowhere near so hefty a budget as The Acolyte, making the calculations very different. Still, all these stats will surely give Lucasfilm cause for concern.
Source: Luminate
The Acolyte
- Release Date
-
2024 – 2023
- Showrunner
-
Leslye Headland
- Directors
-
Leslye Headland, Alex Garcia Lopez
- Writers
-
Leslye Headland, Charmaine De Grate, Kor Adana