Showrunner for Lucasfilm’s latest Star Wars series The Acolyte, Leslye Headland, admitted that the show has not been greenlit for a second season yet.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – MAY 23: (L-R) Leslye Headland and Dave Filoni, Chief Creative Officer, Lucasfilm attend the launch event for Lucasfilm’s new Star Wars series The Acolyte at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California on May 23, 2024. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
In a lengthy interview with Entertainment Weekly breaking down much of the events that happened in the show’s fifth episode, Headland was eventually asked about a possible second season.
She initially stated, “I’ll tell you my philosophy on first seasons. Something that I’ve noticed is first seasons will end on what should have been the break into act two. It feels like everyone’s really expecting to get a second season, and I don’t feel that’s a good idea.”
“I think you should put everything you can into the first season and give the audience a nice resolution that feels satisfying, but enough nods to mysteries that you would want to see a second season,” she explained. “So it’s a little bit of both. You don’t want to leave it so wrapped up that, like Obi-Wan or a standalone mini-series, that there’s no reason to watch a second season, but I think there’s enough stuff in the last few episodes that you would want to have answered.
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 07: Leslye Headland onstage during the Acolyte studio panel at the Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images for Disney)
READ: ‘The Acolyte’ Showrunner Leslye Headland Casts Doubt On A Second Season Being Made
Next, Headland was asked if there was any progress made on a possible Season 2, she replied, “I remember reading that Vince Gilligan in writing and doing the first season of Breaking Bad really didn’t plan on, ‘We’re getting seven more seasons, and this is what’s going to happen to Walter White.’ It was much more, ‘Here’s everything we got. We’re throwing everything at the wall.’ And then with the pickup, he mapped out, ‘Okay, here’s what’s going to happen over the course of however many seasons.'”
She then asserted, “So I took that approach with this. I threw everything into season 1, because who knows what’s going to happen?”
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – MAY 23: Leslye Headland attends the launch event for Lucasfilm’s new Star Wars series The Acolyte at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California on May 23, 2024. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
From there, Headland indicated she would need a break before potentially doing a second season. She also admitted a second season had not been greenlit yet.
She said, “And then I’d say there are four to five major mysteries and plot points that have to get hit in season 2, but until we get a proper pickup, I worry that spending a lot of time in that world — especially being in a period where I’ve worked so long on this project that honestly I’m exhausted by it coming out — to kind of jump right into like, ‘All right, season 2….’”
“It will probably be more that I know what needs to happen, and I know what the character development needs to be in order to hit the plot points and the character points for a second, third, or fourth season. So I look forward to working on that, but right now, I haven’t,” Headland concluded.
Leslye Headland attends the UK Premiere of Lucasfilm’s ‘The Acolyte’ at Odeon Luxe Leicester Square in London, on May 28, 2024. (Photo by StillMoving.Net for Disney)
The Acolyte is the worst received Star Wars show based on audience scores at both Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb. The show currently has an abysmal 14% Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Star Wars: The Acolyte Rotten Tomatoes scores
On IMDb it has an atrocious 3.3 albeit the unweighted mean actually sits at 2.9. Furthermore, a majority (58.2%) of all reviews are 1 out of 10.
The Acolyte review scores on IMDb
Not only is the show poorly rated, but it also has bad viewership. According to Luminate, the first two episodes only brought in 210 million minutes watched in the United States. For comparison, Ahsoka had 829 million minutes watched as reported by Nielsen.
Luminate Streaming Originals: Television Ratings for the week of May 31-June 6, 2024
The week of the show’s third episode premiere saw a significant bump to 380.5 million minutes watched. However, this was still much lower than Ahsoka’s 487 million minutes viewed for the week its third episode premiered.
Luminate Streaming Originals: Television Ratings for the week of June 7-June 13, 2024
The latest data from Luminate also showed that bump did not last. For the week of the show’s fourth episode premiere, the show only brought in 262 million minutes watched.
Luminate Streaming Originals: Television Ratings for the week of June 14-June 20, 2024
What do you make of Headland’s comments regarding a second season for The Acolyte?
