Any “ Star Wars ” fans who were excited about the new developments introduced in the Season 1 finale of “ The Acolyte ” should brace for disappointment. The Disney+ series created by Leslye Headland and starring Amandla Stenberg and Manny Jacinto has been canceled after a single season, Variety and Deadline have reported. IndieWire has reached out to Lucasfilm and Disney for comment.
The cancellation marks an abrupt ending for a series that was polarizing from the beginning. Headland’s series — which takes place one hundred years before the Prequel Trilogy and follows the mystery behind a series of Jedi murders — faced a predictable level of online outrage from the beginning, possibly due to its break from franchise conventions, its diverse creative team , or some combination thereof. But an equally passionate segment of the “Star Wars” fan base praised the show for bringing some much-needed creative risk-taking to the franchise.
As Lucasfilm continues to consolidate its “Star Wars” output around proven commodities like “The Mandalorian” and its spin-offs (and upcoming film “The Mandalorian and Grogu” ), many saw the bold storytelling of “The Acolyte” as helping to keep the flame of creativity alive in a franchise that otherwise risked stagnation. Fans speculated for weeks about the identity of the Sith Lord , and then, once his identity was revealed, how he might connect to Darth Plagueis . “The best Star Wars projects in recent years are .