The Disney+ “Star Wars” murder mystery series “The Acolyte” received decent reviews from the critics, but as its somewhat abysmal 19% Popcornmeter score on Rotten Tomatoes proves, the fandom didn’t exactly embrace the show. While the series’ High Republic setting could have been a gold mine for “Star Wars,” the fan reception and the show’s cancellation after a single season mean that we might not get to revisit the era on screen any time soon. Surely, all of this means that “The Acolyte” will go down as a disastrous failure that no one watched, right?
Not quite so. On the contrary, the 2024 year-end film & TV report by entertainment industry data analysis company Luminate has revealed some interesting numbers about “The Acolyte.” As it turns out, the show was not only the most-viewed “Star Wars” project of 2024, but it was also the year’s second most viewed Disney+ series at an impressive 2.7 billion minutes. Only “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” (3 billion viewing minutes) was able to perform better for the platform.
The Acolyte did well during a difficult year for major franchises
In some circumstances, the news that a cancelled “Star Wars” show actually did pretty well might be a good reason for the fandom to whip up a nice little outrage. However, apart from the aforementioned fact that the most vocal fans never really got behind “The Acolyte,” the show’s viewing numbers come with an asterisk. The Luminate report found that 2024 was a very difficult year for franchises, which is clear when you compare the 2.7 billion minutes accrued by “The Acolyte” with the previous year. In January 2024, Nielsen’s data (via Variety) pinpointed the legal drama “Suits” as the most-watched streaming series of 2023, netting Netflix no less than 57.7 billion minutes viewed. Meanwhile, the most-streamed Disney+ show was another “Star Wars” series in the form of “The Mandalorian,” with 12.3 billion minutes viewed.
While that comparison may deflate the tires of “The Acolyte” a little, it’s still worth remembering that its viewing minutes did make it the streamer’s number two show of 2024 (that and with “Suits” especially having 134 episodes versus eight for “The Acolyte,” a one-to-one comparison isn’t exactly fair). In fact, Disney has already explained that the cancellation of “The Acolyte” had little to do with its performance. As Disney Entertainment co-chairman Alan Bergman previously told Vulture, the decision to discontinue the expensive show was purely financial:
“So as it relates to ‘Acolyte,’ we were happy with our performance, but it wasn’t where we needed it to be given the cost structure of that title, quite frankly, to go and make a season 2. So that’s the reason why we didn’t do that.”
“The Acolyte” is currently streaming in its entirety on Disney+.
