Today we are sharing some Barside Buzz about The Acolyte, why it was cancelled and some Keanu Reeves rumors as well. I’m sure you know by now that The Acolyte has been cancelled by Lucasfilm and will not getting a Season 2. We here at LRM had been told by a source around 4 weeks ago this was the way the decision was swinging. However Jeff Sneider recently talked about some things he had heard from sources in his The Insneider newsletter.
Sneider says he’s been told the reason The Acolyte was cancelled is a simple one. Viewership figures were low. Now this comes as no surprise because the sites that track streaming numbers all had Acolyte far lower than the likes of Ahsoka which came before it.
However the next rumor from Sneider is a little harder to buy, though what do I know? Sneider says that the original top choice to play Master Sol was in fact Keanu Reeves, but scheduling got in the way. The reason I struggle with this one is how showrunner Leslye Headland talked about almost writing the character for Lee jung-jae. This was also the first English speaking role that the award wining actor had agreed to. Then we have someone who worked on the production of The Acolyte, Jules Foddy. In a now deleted tweet Foddy rejected this claim saying that he never once came across any mention of anyone other than Lee jung-jae for the role.
The exact wording of the now deleted post was;
“Never heard his [Reeves] name mentioned once during prep/production and it’s an insult to suggest JJ [jung-jae] was second choice.”
You can never truly delete anything these days, always be mindful.
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The final piece of information from Sneider was that Lucasfilm has a lot of unannounced shows in development. I’ve no doubt. However, being in development and actually getting made are two very different things. Officially right now there is only one Star Wars show in development and that is Ahsoka Season 2. We still don’t know if there will ever be a Mando Season 4. There is currently no sign of anything else that we have any rumors of even.
Instead the focus for Lucasfilm right now seems to be getting back into cinema. The Mandalorian and Grogu is evidence of that. We also have the Rey Sequel in development, a movie from Shawn Levy in development, and one from Taika Waititi supposedly still being developed. Add on to that we have James Mangold’s Dawn of the Jedi movie as well.
I’ve said for a while, Disney want to reduce the budget on the Disney+ output. That means developing a series that is designed with a smaller budget in mind. That’s always tougher to pull off for a Star Wars show. However, it seems the only way to maintain this content at a cost effective level going forward. I guess we shall see?
Lucasfilm, look to Andor for ideas. Imagine a lower budget version of that show with less spectacle but a similar tone. There you’d have something to work with. It won’t be as great as Andor, the spectacle is a part of that show. However, I’d probably like it a lot better than Obi-Wan Kenobi or Skeleton Crew.
What do you think about this latest Barside Buzz around The Acolyte, why it was cancelled and the Keanu Reeves rumors? Thoughts below as always.
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