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'The Acolyte' Canceled: Disney's Star Wars Spinoff Done After One Season
(www.hollywoodreporter.com)
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this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2024
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The one good thing about streaming services like Disney+ is that they have the platform metrics, and they can push shows against audiences and get watch metrics, retention metrics, etc from a large group of viewers. i.e. any online media storms can be weathered by good data of how the show is really performing.
The focus on anti-woke messaging from the show creatives seems like a rhetorical tool, if its the strongest message they have about the property that is what they are going to do to bring attention to it. If you have positive reviews, you talk about the reviews. If you have strong view numbers you talk about the viewer numbers. Since silence is the worst thing for a media property, if you have nothing else you talk about controversy real or imagined. Is there real anti-woke messaging for this show, sure, but like the standard background level you get on anything; is it the most interesting and important aspect of this show? Apparently - otherwise why would the creatives be talking about it?
The rhetoric escalation tree reveals uncomfortable truths. Woke/AntiWoke doesn't matter, only if it makes money, if it makes money, it gets another season.
Yup. It’s easier to blame anti-woke than to admit to poor business decisions. Disney only cares about burning $180 mil + marketing and getting brand damage in exchange. Bloated budgets are the killer of movies, and movies actually make money whereas streaming shows don’t. A movie needs to make 2-2.5x the budget to break even, and when you’re blowing that kind of money without collecting ticket prices…
$180mil is more than the budget of Top Gun: Maverick which made $1.5bil. Inside Out 2 had a slightly larger budget of $200mil and has made over $1.6bil so far. The Acolyte made nothing and didn’t drive sales, so it was a poor investment.
People who really liked the show could try a gofundme for Disney, request merch to buy, or if they’re extremely wealthy give them $200mil to make another season. Looping Acolyte while asleep to pump viewership would’ve helped too, as you basically noted— Velma received a lot more hate but with high viewership and lower budget, it got a second season. In capitalistic America it’s difficult to convince a company to make less profit, much less discard hundreds of millions. Money is all that matters.
Really well said