Why has Star Wars: The Acolyte returned as a streaming hit nearly two years after it was cancelled on Disney+?

On July 16, 2024, the eight-episode first season of Star Wars: The Acolyte concluded and only a month later, it was officially cancelled. Amandla Stenberg, who was the lead of the Star Wars series shared a statement on her Instagram story at the time and started by saying that“I’m going to be transparent and say it’s not a huge shock for me.”

She continued: “There has been a rampage of vitriol that we have faced since the show was even announced, when it was still just a concept and no one had even seen it. That’s when we started experiencing a rampage of, I would say, hyper-conservative bigotry and vitriol, prejudice, hatred and hateful language towards us.”

Amandla Stenberg also said: “Of course, I’m very sad about the show being canceled. … I just want to let those people know out there who supported us in that way, and supported us vocally — despite and in the face of all of the vitriol that we received and the kind of the targeted attack, I would say, we received by the alt-right — just that you were deeply loved and appreciated. And it made this job all the worthwhile for me.”

In an interview with Vulture, Alan Bergman, Disney Entertainment co-chairman, said: “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.”

There was a mixed reaction amongst Reddit users at the time to Star Wars: The Acolyte being cancelled. One user wrote: “I liked it, i'm sad it's over.”

Another said: “It was horrible, there were plot holes, bad acting, terrible sets, pretty much nothing about it was immersive. The only cool thing was the time period they decided to focus on, other than that it was bad.”

One other wrote: “Some of the absolute best lightsaber combat in all of Star Wars (definitely top 3). IMO, people were quick to cast judgement on the show during the “power of one” episode and gave up there.

“ It definitely had potential towards the end and I would’ve liked to see where the story was headed with Smilo Ren.

“It definitely deserves at least 1 more season that focuses more on the Sith aspect of the show and less of the Jedi.”

Two years after it was cancelled, Star Wars: The Acolyte has now returned as a streaming hit. Reddit users have been reacting to the news and one wrote: “It wasn’t perfect. It had a lot of flaws. But nothing damning enough to cancel and couldn’t be worked on in a second season. Especially since those lightsaber battles are some of the best.”

Another wrote: “I actually like the show. Hopefully, there will be the sequel in novel and/or comic to answer the questions left from the ending.”