Despite leaving the door open for more adventures, The Acolyte won’t be returning on Disney+. Deadline reports that Lucasfilm has decided not to pick up The Acolyte for season 2, effectively canceling the Star Wars spinoff series a month after its first season ended.
As Deadline notes, this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. While the show certainly had its fans, viewership fell off sharply after the first few weeks, failing to sustain the momentum of the two-episode premiere on June 4. The reviews were subpar as well, with the show garnering a 78% score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 4.1/10 on IMDb.
The show starred Amandla Stenberg as Osha and Mae, twin sisters whose lives took divergent paths after they met a group of Jedi as children. The series also featured Lee Jung-jae, Charlie Barnett, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joonas Suotamo, Dafne Keen, Rebecca Henderson, Jodie-Turner Smith, Manny Jacinto, and Dean-Charles Chapman.
In recent interviews, The Acolyte creator Leslye Headland said she would be satisfied with the season if it was all she ever got to make, but also hinted at future stories.
“The dangling of other stuff, especially the legacy stuff like what’s Manny [Jacinto]’s name, Yoda, Plagueis, and what the background is with Vernestra and her relationship with the Senate and how that’s going to unfold with this sort of internal review of the Jedi — where does that lead?” she told EW. “So it was a lot of: How is this going to fit in to what we later see? That was the step I wanted to save for the tease, as well as Osha and the Stranger’s relationship. I felt like that was a really good thing to tease as well. Mostly, I need a full season for that.”
If Disney and Lucasfilm weren’t satisfied with the response to The Acolyte, this might be the last we see of the High Republic era in live action. Next, we’ll get the Disney+ series Skeleton Crew in December, Andor season 2 in 2025, and The Mandalorian and Grogu in 2026.
