A new report confirms that The Acolyte performed worse than Ahsoka on Disney+.
Mae (Amandla Stenberg) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
Deadline’s Katie Campione reported that according to Lucasfilm data, The Acolyte’s two-episode premiere only attracted 11.1 million views globally after five days of streaming.
This report confirms that The Acolyte performed worse than the most recent Star Wars live-action series, Dave Filoni’s Ahsoka. According to a blog post on StarWars.com, Lucasfilm reported that the debut episode of Ahsoka “garnered 14 million views, making the series number one globally on the streaming platform.”
In a footnote, Lucasfilm noted that “a view is defined as total stream time divided by runtime available.
(L-R): Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) and Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi) in Lucasfilm’s STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
The total runtime of the first episode of Ahsoka was 56 minutes and 25 seconds. However, the series released two episodes back-to-back for its premiere. The second episode’s runtime totaled 43:57. That means combined the two-episode runtime was 100:22. The Acolyte released two episodes on its premiere date last Tuesday on June 4th. The total runtime for both episodes totaled 73 minutes and 55 seconds.
That means the total minutes viewed globally for The Acolyte was around 820 million while Ahsoka was likely around 1.4 billion minutes viewed.
Jedi Master Indara (Carrie-Anne Moss) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
However, it’s unclear how accurate The Walt Disney Company’s reporting actually is. Data tracking company Nielsen reported that Ahsoka’s two-episode premiere garnered 829 million minutes viewed in the United States alone.
Nielsen “Overall” Streaming Ratings for the week of August 21 to August 27, 2023
READ: Leslye Headland’s ‘The Acolyte’ Gets Destroyed By Viewers
As noted by X user NowItsKnown that total minutes viewed dropped to 575 million minutes viewed the week of its finale. That was worse than Andor, which racked up 674 million minutes the week its finale debuted. Andor had a 3-episode premiere on September 21, 2022. According to Nielsen it racked up 624 million minutes viewed.
As anticipated #Ahsoka‘s season finale came in under #Andor‘s by 99Mil Mins.#Disney #DisneyPlus #StarWars@wdwpro1 @ValliantRenegad @KinelRyan @JonasJCampbell @Nerdrotics @GeeksGamersCom @BoundingComics pic.twitter.com/v6bpGMda3k
— MAC (@NowItsKnown) November 2, 2023
Infamously, Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy detailed that the show was chasing the audience. He told Variety, “I think I was surprised. I thought the show would go the other way, that we would have this gigantic, instantaneous audience that would just be everywhere, but that it would take forever for non-‘Star Wars’ people or critics or my cohort of friends to get involved in the show.”
“The opposite happened. We ended up with all this critical praise, all this deep appreciation and understanding from really surprising number of sources, and we’re chasing the audience,” he admitted.
(L-R): Tony Gilroy and Diego Luna on the set of Lucasfilm’s ANDOR, exclusively on Disney+. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
READ: Leslye Headland Confirms ‘The Acolyte’ Is The “Gayest Star Wars,” And Claims That R2-D2 Is A Lesbian
Looking at other comparisons. The Acolyte performed far worse than Obi-Wan Kenobi as well as The Mandalorian Season 2. Obi-Wan Kenobi premiered with two episodes in May 2022 and racked up 958 million minutes viewed in the United States alone according to Nielsen.
The Mandalorian Season 2 premiered in October 2020 and racked up 1.030 billion minutes. It also only had a single episode premiere. Even The Mandalorian Season 3, which also had a single episode premiere brought in 823 million minutes viewed in the United States according to Nielsen.
(L-R): Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff) with the Darksaber in Lucasfilm’s THE MANDALORIAN, season three, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
It’s abundantly clear that this show is a failure. It’s also another piece of evidence that under the leadership of Kathleen Kennedy and Bob Iger Star Wars is bleeding viewers and fans at an extremely rapid rate.
While there is an abundance of blame to go on Kathleen Kennedy for greenlighting the show and Bob Iger for continuing to allow Kathleen Kennedy to greenlight Star Wars shows like The Acolyte, showrunner and former assistant to Harvey Weinstein Leslye Headland also bears a significant brunt and she knows it. She told The New York Times, “If it doesn’t succeed, it’s because of me. That’s really scary to think about.”
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)
What do you make of these viewership numbers and the fact that The Acolyte debuted worse than Ahsoka?
11.1 million views for a SW show with no legacy characters doesn’t sound that bad (I expected it to be way worse) if I’m being honest.