Oh, who would have seen this coming?
Disney/Lucasfilm has to be one of the worst-run companies on the planet, continuously giving birth to some of the worst message-ridden entertainment in the entirety of the industry. As RedState’s been covering, the latest abortion it produced was “The Acolyte,” a horrendously written show filled with lesbian space witches, contradictions, fires in vacuums, and writing that ruined the universal logic George Lucas created.
(READ: Star Wars Is Now Lesbian Space Witches… I’m Not Kidding)
Needless to say, you wouldn’t find a lot of Star Wars fans watching this wreck. The fan base has been bleeding off for some time, thanks to the mishandling of the brand by “the force is female” Kathleen Kennedy and her obsession with injecting socio-political messaging into the shows. Each new additional Star Wars release has driven off more and more people, ultimately resulting in “The Acolyte” having abysmal ratings.
And it appears that we’ll be spared a second season, as The Verge reported that the show has been canceled:
Though its season one finale seemed to be setting up the series for more episodes, Deadline reports that Disney has canceled The Acolyte. Things were rocky from the start for the show as Star Wars fans displeased with its cast and premise took to review-bombing it in droves, but Disney’s cancellation decision was reportedly driven by The Acolyte’s less-than-desirable viewership numbers.
The news comes just a little over a year after Disney CEO Bob Iger told CNBC that reigning in spending on big budget Marvel and Star Wars projects could be an important part of his plan to get the company back in a healthier financial position. And given how expensive The Acolyte was to produce, it doesn’t entirely come as a surprise that it’s meeting its end so soon.
According to IMDB, each episode of “The Acolyte” cost $22.5 million, amounting to a budget of $180 million. A high price tag for a show that ultimately cost it a large chunk of the Star Wars audience, as well as destroyed some of the cannon of that universe. For comparison, the feature film “Godzilla Minus One” only cost $15 million to make, and it was a certified hit with fabulous writing, incredible acting, and CGI that actually looked good for the budget.
This makes “The Acolyte” a perfect representation of modern Hollywood bloat. Overpaid actors, overworked CGI artists, and activist writers creating things that are so awful that extensive reshoots and reworks are often required, inflating budgets beyond anything they should ever reach. It’s a show that should have never been made in the first place, yet thanks to Kennedy’s obsession with socio-political styles of empowerment, the show was approved and created.
At the head of the show was former Harvey Weinstein’s right-hand gal, Leslye Headland, a person who must know where the bodies are buried because I’m not sure how the script she produced should have ever seen the light of day. She infected Star Wars with an advanced case of woke that I doubt Disney will be able to shake off for as long as it owns the rights to the franchise.
If Disney is truly trying to turn itself around, as some signs have indicated, a few things need to happen. One of those is to do to “The Acolyte” what they did to the “Willow” television series and memory hole it so that it never sees the light of day again. Then, Bob Iger needs to find a way to get rid of Kathleen Kennedy and quickly. Kennedy says that she will retire the moment she gets a great hit, but judging by her talent as the head of a brand, that’s a long wait for a train that won’t come.
Marvel is rumored to begin going down this path of redemption, though that remains to be seen.
(READ: Disney Is Quietly Bending the Knee to You As You’ve Proven Stronger in the Culture War)
Perhaps in time, Star Wars will get a new head and it will start producing content worth watching, but until then we’re going to get more failures like “The Acolyte” and more cancellations.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
