And in the end, the ratings just weren’t strong enough, especially for a Star Wars project. The Acolyte garnered 11.1 million views over its first five days (and 488 million minutes viewed)—not bad, but below Ahsoka‘s 14 million views over the same period. But those numbers declined sharply over the ensuing weeks, with the finale earning the dubious distinction of posting the lowest minutes viewed (335 million) for any Star Wars series finale.
Writing at Forbes, Caroline Reid noted that The Acolyte was hampered from the start by a challenging post-pandemic financial environment at Disney. It was greenlit in 2021 along with many other quite costly series to boost subscriber numbers for Disney+, contributing to $11.4 billion losses in that division. Then Bob Iger returned as CEO and prioritized cutting costs. The Acolyte‘s heavy VFX needs and star casting (most notably Carrie Ann Moss and Squid Game‘s Lee Jung-jae) made it a pricey proposition, with ratings expectations to match. And apparently the show didn’t generate as much merchandising revenue as expected.
As the folks at Slash Film pointed out, The Acolyte‘s bloated production costs aren’t particularly eye-popping compared to, say, Prime Video’s The Rings of Power, which costs a whopping $58 million per episode, or Marvel’s Secret Invasion (about $35 million per episode). But it’s pricey for a Star Wars series; The Mandalorian racked up around $15 million per episode, on par with Game of Thrones. So given the flagging ratings and lukewarm reviews, the higher costs proved to be “the final nail in the coffin” for the series in the eyes of Disney, per Reid.
