One of the world's most expensive TV shows, budget was Rs 5 crore per minute, was cancelled after just 8 episodes when..

The Acolyte was one of the more unusual and ambitious outings in the Star Wars universe. The TV show, which premiered earlier this year, was the first live-action show or film from the Star Wars series that had almost zero connection to the original trilogy. The show was set centuries before the events seen in the main Star Wars films and was meant to be an origin story of sorts for the Siths, the saga’s overarching bad guys.

Naturally, given it was Star Wars, it was expansive in its scale and ambitious in its presence. Everything from the star power to the budget was extravagant, and the hopes were high for its success. Tragically though, that did not come to pass. The show suffered from mixed reviews and low ratings right from the first episode, leading to its premature cancellation.

Just how expensive was The Acolyte

Created by Leslye Headland for Disney+, The Acolyte was one of the most expensive TV series ever made. A New York Times report from earlier this year put its budget at $180 million (Rs 1500 crore) for season 1, or around $22.5 million (just under Rs 200 crore) per episode. Given that each episode was spread across roughly 35-45 minutes, The Acolyte had a staggering cost of $670k per minute of screen time (over Rs 5 crore). This cost went into the VFX, set-building, cast salaries, and production design of the massive show.

Why was The Acolyte cancelled after one season

But the cost did not guarantee quality. The Acolyte released on Disney+ (and Disney+ Hotstar in India) in June to rather mixed reviews. As subsequent episodes were released over June-July, the reviews did not improve. Metacritic’s weighted average of the show was 67 out of 100 while Rotten Tomatoes had a fresh but still low rating of 78%. But the fan response was worse. Apart from the racist attacks on the cast from trolls, many Star Wars fans also disliked the show, evident by its low viewership. The Acolyte had 11 million views across its first five days, a climb down from the 14 million views of Ahsoka, Star Wars’ previous show. As per data released by Disney+, the total viewership of the first two episodes was 488 million minutes, much lower than other Star Wars shows like Andor (624 million) and Ahsoka (829 million). The show was not in the top 10 shows (by viewership) on the Nielsen’s streaming charts by its fourth episode.

All this led to the show’s cancellation barely weeks after the last episode of season 1 was released in mid-July 2024. Deadline reported that Disney+ took the decision to cancel the show as the streaming service had a ‘high viewership threshold for renewing high-end, big-budget series’, which The Acolyte did not meet.

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