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'The Acolyte' Was Actually One of the Biggest Disney+ Hits for 2024

By Mike Redmond | News | January 28, 2025 |

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Header Image Source: Lucasfilm

It’s no secret that I thoroughly enjoyed The Acolyte. It was a refreshing new entry in the franchise that was an outright love letter to all things Star Wars including The Acolyte’s equally misunderstood sibling The Last Jedi. Heck, even Dustin liked it, and we’re talking about a guy who only watches shows about math and holes. (Does The Pitt have holes? I’m guessing The Pitt has holes.)

That said, as much as I was in the tank, even I accepted that the numbers weren’t there when The Acolyte got canceled. The show had major headwinds from The Mandalorian Season 3 causing Star Wars fatigue and toxic fans who still can’t stop attacking The Acolyte. With those kind of conditions, it makes perfect sense that The Acolyte died on the vine. Or did it?

According to a new report, The Acolyte was the second most watched show on Disney+ for 2024, outperforming even Agatha All Along. Although, there’s some rough news in the mix. Via Deadline:

Luminate also notes that streaming franchises — including Marvel, Star Wars and Rings of Power — all underperformed last year. The second season of Prime Video’s Lord of the Rings series was down 60% in total minutes watched compared to Season 1, and Disney+ didn’t fare much better with offerings like Echo and Agatha All Along, which underperformed previous Marvel streaming series.

But, juxtapose that with the fact that those big IP franchises were still the best performing series on Disney+, and the solution becomes unclear. Percy Jackson and the Olympians was top dog on Disney+ last year with over 3B minutes viewed, and The Acolyte came in second place with 2.7B.

So, basically, during a rough year for major IP, The Acolyte still managed to claw its way to the top of the pack on Disney+. So, why was it cancelled? Two reasons:

1. The Acolyte was wildly expensive. Disney needed it to be a monster hit like The Mandalorian, and that was never happening. Even The Mandalorian isn’t The Mandalorian anymore and has been shuffled off to theaters for a Hail Mary pass. Which brings us to a much larger issue:

2. What the hell was the point of all these shows? They did absolutely nothing for their respective franchises except kill enthusiasm. Sh*t, Skeleton Crew is currently the least-watched Star Wars series on the platform. Basically, Disney dumped at least a billion dollars down the drain only to make people sick of their golden goose franchises, and they’re very aware of that fact.

Marvel is showing signs of bouncing back, but there’s only one solution for Star Wars: Go away for a while and make audiences miss you. Is Disney doing that? Nope, they’re punting Baby Yoda onto movie screens next year.