The Star Wars Rumor Zone

It’s a weekend, not much going on… but maybe you all want to have a fun time reading the latest crazy Star Wars rumors! We did this previously, where we discussed the rumor that Disney wants to sell Lucasfilm or is at least considering it (verdict was: extremely unlikely), but the rumor mill keeps on spinning and there are all new rumors making the rounds, and they are just as entertaining! So click through to enter the Star Wars Rumor Zone… this week mostly about The Acolyte!

You are about the enter the Star Wars Rumor Zone!

Ok, so what are those The Acolyte rumors?

The Acolyte has been a constant topic in the past few months. Rumors say that the show is not fully funded and that all that Leslye Headland did is to film a sizzle real, something to convince the Disney bosses to fully fund the show.

But the latest rumor goes even further… and it is once again Kamran Pasha who quotes his source “Sparrow”… according to the “source” The Acolyte has now been more or less cancelled. According to the report Leslye Headland was fired or no longer works for Lucasfilm (she wasn’t really an employee) and the entire show will now be soft cancelled. Meaning: Lucasfilm and Disney will pretend The Acolyte is still a thing or at least not talk about its cancellation, similar to how Rian Johnson’s zombie trilogy has never been officially cancelled, but we all know it IS cancelled.

This rumor was met with incredulity even by other, affiliated YouTubers…

Now crazier things have happened. So is it entirely impossible for Lucasfilm or Disney to shelve The Acolyte? No.

There are precedents for this, even in very recent memory.

Warner spent dozens of millions of dollars on a Batgirl movie… and then decided to shelve it indefinetely and to never release it.
And only a few days ago Paramount announced that they are cancelling the animated series Star Trek Prodigy, even though the second season is close to finishing post production. The post production will apparently be finished even, but Paramount will NEVER release the second season. In fact, Star Trek Prodigy will be removed from Paramount+ entirely in the coming days. So unless another network buys the show, a fully funded, previously greenlit and finished season 2 will never be released. Paramount accepts the financial loss and deems it the smarter choice not to release it. Maybe they want to use the show as a tax write off instead. Similar to what Disney did with Willow and other shows (and Paramount didn’t just axe Prodigy, but other things as well, like a Grease prequel series made for “modern audiences”).

So could Lucasfilm and/or Disney do the same with The Acolyte? It is conceivable.

Is it likely though? I have my doubts… now I don’t have any “sources”, but my guess is this rumor has a 5% chance of being correct. Maybe 15%, because it’s Lucasfilm and Kathleen Kennedy who have a habit of messing up productions.

Of course everything could change should Kathleen Kennedy not survive the upcoming Indiana Jones and The Dial Destiny fiasco (this movie could open with similar numbers as The Flash, which has turned out to be a complete financial fiasco for Warner/Discovery). Should she retire (forcefully or not) any and all plans about future Star Wars movies or shows could change. But even then I would find it unlikely that a finished (and other reports claim The Acolyte wrapped filming before the writer’s strike began) series would be sent to the vaults and not see the light of day. Of course, Disney would save money if The Acolyte were shelved now, because no post production, visual FX work would need to be done, which is always a substantial part of any movie and series budget.

The one thing that is weird about the whole project, and verifiably true, is the legal dispute between a producer who was hired to executive produce the show, Karyn McCarthy, but was then fired two weeks later, allegedly for no reason at all. The producer then sued the production for money, because – according to her – she was let go without any real reason and she demands compensation, because she rejected a high profile project at Apple which would have earned her potential millions in order to work on The Acolyte, which, according to McCarthy, was promised to get several seasons, only to get the boot rather unceremoniously, again, according to McCarthy. The Hollywood Reporter has a story on all that if you want to know more. It’s all very mysterious.

According to McCarthy Lucasfilm offered her a compensation of $5,000, which she of course rejected. She cites breach of contract and wants serious money now. The verdict is still out. Maybe the trial will reveal new details about the production.

This was taken as evidence that The Acolyte is not a fully funded project, that Disney never even officially greenlit the series, that Kathleen Kennedy has been shifting money around and that all Leslye Headland did in the UK was to make sizzle reals, in order to receive more funding from Disney.

Now The Acolyte may as well turn out to be an unmitigated disaster for Disney on Disney+, some remarks by the showrunner (who is unpopular with some people to begin with, because of her professional background as Harvey Weinstein’s ex assistant) and some actors are a bit, let’s say “controversial” and it is quite possible many more traditional, older fans may not really like the series or its themes (allegedly the series lead eventually wants to kill the Force or eradicate it after being let down and betrayed by both the Jedi and the Sith… add comments by Headland that this will be the most queer-coded Star Wars ever, that the series will have the first trans actor in Star Wars etc… and comments about “the patriarchy” made by one actress at Celebration). So it is conceivable that Bob Iger said, it’s better to accept the loss and to preserve whatever positive image of Star Wars there still is, and to pull a “Batgirl”… but again, I have a hard time believing this. However, I wouldn’t rule it out. As I said, in recent times Hollywood studios didn’t shy away from shelving completed projects. Even ones that cost quite a bit of money.

The only way I can see this happening is if Bob Iger believes The Acolyte could do serious damage to the franchise and be as much of a flop as Willow, or maybe even worse, and/or seriously annoy a large part of the fan base with detrimental results.

The other rumor was about the alleged plot of the Rey movie… the rumor said an older Rey will train new Jedi and the movie will actually be about two young (possibly teenagers) male and female Jedi, with the female Jedi destined to be the new Chosen One or hope or whatever.

However other outlets said this rumor is false and is NOT a synopsis of the movie. Given that the movie hasn’t even finished writing yet and with the writer’s strike all work has stopped anyway, it is very unlikely anyone has a synopsis for the movie. At best this is based on things Lindelof worked on, but his version of the movie will never happen.

So… what do you think? Do you believe Disney could actually soft cancel The Acolyte? Are you interested in The Acolyte? Would you watch The Acolyte? No release date has been given for the show yet… but it would most likely be released in 2024.

Oh, and that “Disney maybe wants to sell Lucasfilm” rumor is still alive… but it is no longer George Lucas who wants to buy it, no, some unnamed rich Saudi billionaire wants to. Because he’s such a big fan of the franchise and he’s unhappy with the current direction. Yeah…..

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