Ewan McGregor mentioned at a LA Comic Con panel that Lucasfilm is “exploring” a season 2 of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Ewan is eager to return as Obi-Wan and also stated previously that he would like to return as the fan favorite character.
Now while Obi-Wan Kenobi had decent ratings, it is the #2 Star Wars show overall on Disney+, fan reception was “mixed” at best. But that doesn’t mean Lucasfilm could not – in theory – learn from their mistakes, hire better writers, more experienced directors / showrunners and give fans an Obi-Wan Kenobi series that deserves the name. The first season detracted from the experience too much with Leia and Reva, any potential season 2 should have a laser sharp focus on the actual main character.
Anyway, what are your thoughts here? Would you like to see a second season of Obi-Wan Kenobi? Or do you think Lucasfilm is ultimately incapable of making any good content these days?
One things is clear, there aren’t many options left for Lucasfilm. For all we know The Mandalorian is over, it will never return to Disney+ and at best be a movie series going forward. Skeleton Crew will flop, this is almost inevitable. Andor will not be a crowd pleaser next year, even if it’s great. Ahsoka is just “meh” and the show suffers from a boring main protagonist with the charisma of a wet towel, also, many feel that Ahsoka will result in a discount store Thrawn trilogy. In short: Lucasfilm needs something that attracts people again. And Ewan McGregor, despite the first season of Obi-Wan Kenobi, is the biggest name they still have, who is reasonably young and who can carry a series, without the use of CGI or deepfakes. While a potential Cal Kestis series could also turn out great, it’s unproven how successful this show can be. And Lucasfilm definitely needs more than just one series in the near future. Because after Ahsoka season 2 in potentially 2026 there is literally nothing.
Daniel Richtman aka DanielRPK on X posted a few more Star Wars tidbits… I’ll make it quick: according to him Lucasfilm is developing a Star Wars series based on the Fallen Order video game franchise with main character Cal Kestis. The third and final game is currently in development and could be released in 2026/27. With Ahsoka possibly seeing a 2026 release it would mean the Cal Kestis series could be ready for a 2027 release. As far as projects go this is probably the safest bet after the disastrous The Acolyte. Both “Jedi” games sold more than 40 million copies combined and Cal Kestis is a very popular character with a roster of equally popular companions. And Lucasfilm could give fans yet another show set during the OT/Rebels/Andor timeline.
DanielRPK also reports that The Mandalorian will end with the 2026 movie (to which I say, if this movie made 1 billion at the box office there would certainly be a sequel), the show will also not return to Disney+. But the character will appear in other projects (certainly the Filoni movie with Ahsoka).
And that’s it for today. Would you like to see a Cal Kestis series? He’s a Jedi, he fights the Empire, his girlfriend (as of Survivor) is one of the best liked female characters, Nightsister Merrin (before Ahsoka retconned it all she was the last surviving Nightsister), all the actors in the game could and would certainly appear in the series as well, it would be more OT era nostalgia, they could use Darth Vader (he appears in the games) and various other OT era characters. So on paper it really sounds like the safest bet. And Lucasfilm absolutely needs something that can replicate the overnight success that was The Mandalorian on Disney+. Neither Andor nor Ahsoka (not even mentioning the 2024 shows) are able to fill that role.
Rumors are spreading (the source seems to be DanielRPK on X who has a mixed track record) that the Rey movie is now on hold. Because they still have no script after all this time and the treatments by writer Steven Knight were never met with approval by Kathleen Kennedy.
Make of that what you will… the source seems to be someone who at times is right about things, other times not so much. But one thing is certain: the movie that was supposed to start filming in 2024 will not begin filming this year.
If the higher ups at Disney have some sense left – and before you say anything, they seem to have, given what we know about the production of Inside Out 2 and just hours ago it was revealed that Disney gets rid of the CCO of their animation department, the animation studio that brought the world such wonderful flops like Strange World and Wish. Jennifer Lee, the now former CCO, says she wants to focus on filmmaking full time instead, and she will work on the next two Frozen movies… so she still has a job (on paper), but is no longer in charge of animation (Lee was basically the Dave Filoni of Disney animation). Anyway, so if they have some sense left Disney will give the Rey movie the Rian Johnson Star Wars trilogy treatment. They must know how high the chances are that a movie by an activist feminist director and a sequel to the sequels will bomb spectacularly. And Kennedy may have played her last trump card with The Acolyte which was an outright disaster on Disney+. They let her do this pet project of hers… and it actually harmed Star Wars. This of course after Indiana Jones 5 only not becoming the biggest Disney movie flop of all time because The Marvels managed to perform even worse.
Deadline just released an exclusive article about the cancellation of The Acolyte. With Deadline being a reputable Hollywood trade magazine with actual industry sources there is zero doubt about the veracity of their report. The least watched live action Star Wars Series on Disney+ ever that cost 180 million to make and which also had the lowest watched Marvel or Star Wars series/season finale on Disney+ ever (less viewers than Ms Marvel even) will not get a second season. As reported in my Nielsen article from a few days ago The Acolyte series finale had not even one quarter of the audience of The Mandalorian season 2 finale and performed worse than the Ms Marvel series finale even, which is a new absolute low point. An overwhelming number of fans ignored the series and refused to watch it. News of the cancellation breaks mere days after Nielsen reported their series finale numbers for The Acolyte, of course internally Disney knew about the viewership weeks ago.
And with that Leslye Headland and The Acolyte will both become obscure footnotes in Star Wars history. The woman who tried to destroy the Jedi and wanted people to root for psychopathic murderers she identified with and considered her “avatar” will never work for Lucasfilm again. And quite frankly – the best Disney could do is to give The Acolyte the Willow treatment and to erase the show from existence or at least to officially label it non canon.
And with that I think we will finally never have to talk about The Acolyte again. Let’s forget about it all. And to the twelve people who wanted a season 2: welcome to the real world!
One final question remains: why does the woman who greenlit both Willow and The Acolyte on Disney+ (two of the worst flops on Disney+) and is reponsible for the massive box office disaster that is Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny still have a job?
Lo and behold, after weeks of absence The Acolyte did manage to enter the Nielsen Streaming Charts for original shows with its last episode. The numbers are however nothing Lucasfilm can be happy about. In fact, the numbers are abysmal. Click through for all the details!
I’ll make it super quick. The Acolyte is not on the top 10 Nielsen Streaming charts, not in the overall top 10, not in the original series top 10, it’s nowhere to be found. In fact, a brand new Star Wars series with an all new episode is now even outperformed by a show which released its currently most recent episode two years ago. A job well done, Leslye Headland and Kathleen Kennedy! You really turned a once successful phenomenon on Disney+ into a bad joke no one is watching. This is with episode 7, the second flashback episode, added. Click through for a short discussion!
The Lando series is officially dead. If anyone remembers: this series was originally announced in 2020. Alongside other projects like “Rogue Squadron” (giggle), “Rangers of the New Republic” (snort) or “Droids” (huh?!?).
Deadline quotes series director / showrunner Justin Simien who told them the project is not moving forward at Lucasfilm.
Simien said this to Deadline:
“It was pretty developed. There was a Bible. There was concept art. There were scripts. But it just wasn’t meant to be.”
No particular reason was given for the cancellation of the project. Last year it was still said that Glover and his co-writer want to turn the series into a movie instead. No word about that here anymore. And let’s be honest: a Lando movie would tank hard. He’s a supporting character who works in the greater context of a Star Wars movie, but few would be eager to watch his solo adventures. It’s certainly for the best we will not get a Lando solo project.
And Kathleen Kennedy can add one more failed/cancelled project to her impressive list of things she announced which then never happened.
Now all we really wait for is Deadline reporting that Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is livid that sexist and misogynist Disney dared to cancel her Rey movie and how this is an outrage.
If only Lucasfilm had had this kind of foresight they show with the Lando series for The Acolyte…
Leave all the usual funny remarks in the comments section if you feel like it. Maybe someone can post an updated list of Kathleen Kennedy’s Star Wars projects that never materialized.
I’ll make it quick. Because at this point it really is beating a dead horse. The Acolyte with episode 6 (the Qimir bathing episode) failed to enter the Nielsen charts. Which comes as no surprise, since the show dropped out of the charts after its third episode (week 2). This corroborates Luminate’s all new streaming charts where The Acolyte also dropped out.
House of the Dragon meanwhile has 1,296 million minutes and Amazon’s The Boys is listed with 1,125 million minutes as the #2 original series. Disney has only one real highlight, but it’s not even a Disney+ show, the FX series (for Hulu) The Bear is #1 on the original shows charts (all episodes were released on the same day), this is the second success story for FX/Hulu this year after Shogun. Disney+ proper only has three entries, the usual suspects: Bluey (again, not even a Disney IP), Moana and because of the successful sequel also Inside Out.
It will be interesting to see what subscriber numbers Disney will report for its streaming service in the upcoming earnings report next week.
We had some leaked images before, but about 4 months before Skeleton Crew will come to Disney+ Lucasfilm is slowly gearing up its marketing efforts for the next Star Wars series. They released a couple of official photos from the show and some basic info. Skeleton Crew was ready for release in 2023 but was delayed because of Bob Iger’s new content strategy, filming ended in January 2023, this has been sitting in the vault for some time already. Click through for the images!
Let’s make it quick. The Acolyte failed to enter the Nielsen charts in week 4, just like last week. This means the big lightsaber battle episode and Qimir reveal interested very, very few people. I talked about it last week what this means for Star Wars and how embarrassing it really is for a once successful and popular franchise. But it all adds up, GI Joe HasLabs utterly wipe the floor with current Star Wars offerings (almost 11k backers now), and now the streaming shows cannot even remotely compete anymore with other genre shows like House of the Dragon (1,047 million minutes) or The Boys (1,179 million minutes). A job well done, Ms Headland and Ms Kennedy!
While marketing for Skeleton Crew has not yet started what seems to be an official promo poster / artwork has now been found in a thrift store (of all places), according to someone who posted the photo on X. This is a color version of a metal ingot revealed previously, maybe this will be the official poster for the series.
The theory is that maybe someone who worked on the show sold some of the swag crewmembers usually get when production wraps. Skeleton Crew was ready for release in 2023 already and thus production ended quite a while ago, but Iger decided to delay the release as part of his new Disney+ content strategy, which is why we’ll get the show in November this year.
One noteworthy thing is that Jude Law is absent, unless you count his silhouette walking in the background with the four kids in tow. This may imply the kids truly are the main focus here with Law only being a support character. One would think they would feature the only known actor in this show a bit more prominently.
What do you think? After so many either at best average (Mando S3, Ahsoka, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Book of Boba Fett) or outright disastrous (The Acolyte) shows I have doubts Lucasfilm under Kennedy will get a series right that is meant to have kids as main characters, especially when we look at the child characters in previous Disney+ projects. But of course no one will know for sure until release and I will certainly watch the pilot episode.
UPDATE: Luminate have already released their numbers for week 7 of The Acolyte, i.e. for the series finale. And episode 8 also failed to enter the top 10 Luminate original series like the previous two episodes. The #10 entry on the Luminate charts has 228.5 million minutes viewed (Sausage Party: Foodtopia, which is a sequel series to the movie) which is just embarrassing. The Acolyte must have had less then 228 million minutes watched, maybe even less than 200 million. According to Luminate the finale was watched by maybe as few as 4.4 million people (or even fewer)! In the update I also discuss some statements made by Headland in a Collider interview that reveal she literally considers Qimir aka Smilo Ren as somewhat of a self insert. You find the Luminate update and the interview quotes at the end of the original article!
Well, that escalated rather quickly… while The Acolyte remained in the top 10 Luminate Original Series charts until week 4 and episode 5 and only dropped out when episode 6 was released in week 5, The Acolyte has already dropped out of the top 10 Nielsen original series charts in week 3 with episode 4! The #10 show has 298 million minutes on the Nielsen charts. The Acolyte must have less than that. According to Luminate The Acolyte had 262 million minutes in week 3 (episode 4). Click through for a short commentary.
It’s finally over… the last ever episode of The Acolyte was released Tuesday night… but Headland’s show ends with a massive middle finger to almost all Star Wars fans. All in all things develop as you’d think they develop, there are no surprises really here. The plot is more than just predictable.
But Headland creates one of the most toxic romances in history (only rivalled by Rey and Kylo Ren) and has the gall to even include a cameo of a certain Jedi we all know… and I do not care about spoilers. The Phantom Menace is more like “The Super Duper Obvious Menace, We’ve Known About For 100 Years” now because at least two members of the high council should know about it all, and knew about it for about a century… which is just laughable. And that other cameo may make some fans even more angry…
There are quite a few things to talk about, none of them pleasant, but Lucasfilm should hear it loud and clear from the normal majority of fans that this is nothing most fans want (in case the lousy ratings do not tell Lucasfilm how a majority of fans reject this). While the two dozen Reylos who now have Oshamir scream on Twitter about how they want a season 2. Anyway, click here or on the banner to read my spoiler review for The Acolyte series finale.
This week you’ll get yet another pretty short article. Because The Acolyte failed to make the top ten original series Luminate streaming charts for a second week in a row, this time with episode 7, that other flashback episode. Last time the series was on the Luminate charts it had around 220 million viewing minutes, by far the lowest figure for any Star Wars live action series ever – if the numbers will be reflected on the Nielsen charts in a few weeks from now we will know for sure. But week 2 figures agreed very well between the two charts. So it is not unreasonable to assume that we may see very similar trends in upcoming Nielsen streaming charts. Click through for a few comments about this embarrassing performance on the Luminate charts.
Nielsen have a somewhat erratic release schedule currently, they released their early June numbers earlier this week… and on Friday they already followed up with the numbers for the next week. Whatever… Nielsen have therefore now added The Acolyte episode 3 (the flashback episode about the power of maaaaannyyyyyyyyyy) to their charts. And we can finally compare one full week of The Acolyte on the Luminate Streaming charts to one full week on the Nielsen charts. How do the numbers compare? It’s very interesting! Click through for all the details!
I thought the worst was behind us. Then episode 7 of The Acolyte was released. “Choice” is a travesty. A twisted mirror universe version of Star Wars that now features current era R&B pop songs and I wish I was just joking, but I am NOT.
This is the nadir. It can’t get any worse… Nothing makes sense. This episode, once more all flashback, is just the amended version of episode 3. All the same things happen again… just with a few more Jedi scenes now. And you know why all of this happened? I will spoil it for you right here and now because you won’t believe me anyway. All of this happens because Torbin is really, really, really, REALLY homesick and wants to go back to Coruscant.
I have no words for this. Okay, I have a few words for this. If you want to know what I have to say about this nuclear catastrophe click here or on the banner and read my spoiler review of “Choice”, the single worst piece of Star Wars ever, and I include The Holiday Special here.
Nielsen have finally released their numbers for early June, which means we now have numbers for The Acolyte. Luminate have their own streaming charts so it will be interesting to see how the two compare. What does Nielsen say about The Acolyte? Click through to find out!
This week it will be a very short article. Because The Acolyte has, as expected, dropped out of the Luminate Streaming Charts, it was already a very close call last week. It is no longer among the top 10 most watched original streaming shows.
Other websites may try to run interference for Lucasfilm and claim what a raging success it is and how the fans are the issue, not the show, but the cold hard fact is that The Acolyte is a ratings failure on Disney+. And while we still have to wait for Nielsen chances are that they will also confirm that this is the least watched Star Wars live action series yet. Now, in all fairness, Andor also dropped out of the top 10 Nielsen charts for original shows exactly once. So maybe The Acolyte will manage a comeback like Andor did. But Andor dropped out of the charts during the middle of the season, not close to the season finale. It seems naked Manny Jacinto did nothing for the ratings.
And no, it is not istophobes who refuse to watch it. The show is just not good, it’s horribly written, in parts horribly acted and outright nonsensical when it comes to the character arc and motivations of its main characters Mae and Osha. In addition to that it aims to deconstruct the Jedi and portray them as shady people with terrible secrets who feel so guilty they commit suicide and who act as overbearing space cops in the High Republic. Maybe most just do not like this version of Star Wars. Almost certainly so. And to think Lucasfilm spent $180 million on this…
The Luminate Streaming Charts on Variety, without The Acolyte.
This week’s episode of The Acolyte is the polar opposite of the previous one. Zero action, dialogue only. Sadly, this also means you need good actors, even more sadly, Amandla Stenberg continues to seriously underwhelm as the lead characters in this. And so much hinges on her here. Anyway. In this episode Manny Jacinto (who is actually a good actor) as the newly revealed Sith gives Osha his best sales pitch (the usual routine), while Sol pretends to be clueless but isn’t really… just when this show finally wants to tell us how the Jedi murdered all the poor space witches we fade to black. Why this show has 8 episodes is beyond me, this is at best a 4 part mini series with one hour episodes.
So… there’s not that much to talk about this week, since things were mostly just boring or the same old same old you expect to see and hear when a Sith tries to recruit someone. But of course there are some things worth discussing… like the vague vibe I get they may retcon Darth Plagueis here, if they do I have a feeling many folks may not be so happy about it. So click here or on the banner for my spoiler review of Teach / Corrupt and let’s discuss the latest episode of The Acolyte!
While we still have to wait another 1 1/2 weeks for Nielsen to finally release their streaming numbers for early June and thus finally including The Acolyte, new player in town Luminate releases their numbers in a much more timely fashion. So we already know the numbers for last week (Friday – Thursday) for The Acolyte. And not to mince any words here… the numbers are BAD. Click through for more!
After last week’s “Day” we get “Night” this week. I wish this was a joke. Anyway, this week’s episode finally reveals the super obvious identity of Smilo Ren. And yes it actually is who everyone said it was from the very beginning… even if some people hoped that Leslye Headland can’t be THAT obvious. Turns out… she is!
What else… in some ways this was the best episode yet. Because it had the least amount of dialogue, half of the episode is just fighting in a dark forest. But make no mistake, the plot we get is still as nonsensical as humanly possible and it may make you question life, the universe and all the rest. I cannot believe anyone who read the scripts greenlit this. It’s even more mysterious why this was given a budget of $180 million. Or why Iger lets Kennedy do as she pleases. I am literally dumbfounded after this episode.
The new Luminate Streaming Charts were released earlier today on Variety. While we still have to wait about two weeks until Nielsen will finally release their numbers for the premiere of The Acolyte, Luminate releases numbers in a much more timely fashion, these are the charts for the June 13th – June 20th period, which includes the release of last week’s episode. And how did The Acolyte do? Well…
WHAT. DID. I. JUST. WATCH????
I don’t know what to say. Only that, in my opinion, I watched the most nonsensical 30 minutes of Star Wars EVER. And this although we had slowmo Space Vespa chases, Kenobi being too dumb to walk around a laser barrier, hiding Lil Leia under a coat with no one noticing that they are walking around in an enemy base, Boba Fett getting tired every 20 minutes and Sabine (and Reva) shrugging off full lightsaber torso penetration just like that.
We need to talk about a lot of things. I also need grief counseling. So please click through for my spoiler review of “Day”, the worst Star Wars streaming episode ever. Yet. This was even worse than The Last Jedi. And four more episodes of The Acolyte are still to come. Someone please help me.
Nielsen is no longer the only game in town when it comes to streaming charts. Luminate is a new player on the market and they cooperate with Variety, who post the weekly Luminate streaming charts. Luminate themselves are not posting any charts on their website, this is a paid service. They are aiming at industry pros and analysts. Anyway, so what does Luminate say about The Acolyte? Click through to find out more!
While user scores at sites like IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic are not the be all end all and will never tell any individual viewer whether or not he or she will like something, they are still a good indicator of what the general consensus by viewers is. High or low ratings almost always have their good reasons, and that reason is not “review bombing” despite what some media outlets claim. So how do things look for The Acolyte? Click through for a closer look!
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