Right now, everyone is processing or celebrating Disney’s cancellation of The Acolyte, the ambitious but beloved and barely watched series that created a typhoon of culture war observed since The Last Jedi.
But the scenes, there’s now a story that extends beyond that, making it seem like Disney is almost completely pulling back from big-budget, live-action Star Wars exhibits on Disney Plus.
Daniel Richtman explained it and he is right. Now we’re at a point where yes, full-length Star Wars movies, even though everything is evolving again, but Disney Plus showing? They feel like they’re stopping, with only one series shown moving forward for over a year. ‘We saw half a dozen.
Ahsoka
It’s not completely different from Marvel. It’s not unusual for the MCU Disney Plus series to not have a second season, with rare exceptions like Loki. Some screens were meant to lead directly to videos like Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Ms. Marvel. Others have led to spin-offs like WandaVision becoming Agatha All Along. An independent series like She-Hulk has been cancelled. We have no idea what’s going on with Hawkeye. Maybe there will be a Moon Knight season 2.
But there is a clear difference here in that at least many other presentations have been announced. Daredevil will return with Born Again. Wonder Man and Iron Heart are coming. Armor Wars would possibly be on hold. We are talking about a Nova series. Vision Quest will be another spin-off of WandaVision. Apparently he’s making a Wakanda series. With the return of Daredevil, we can also see the return of Punisher, Luke Cage or Jessica. Jones of the Netflix era.
Star Wars? It’s much darker. Outside of The Mandalorian, it turns out that Disney probably hasn’t realized the return on investment they were looking for in almost all of those shows, and they’ve obviously gone astray if they’re spending $180 million on a brand new, brand new era. Character series like The Acolyte when he had 0% chance of being “worth” that much. I doubt Andor was ever returned what he charges (apparently $250 million) in “value,” however, it was meant to be a two-season assignment. and at least it was smart enough to help salvage some of the reputation of Disney’s Star Wars era.
Disney gets lost in the woods with Star Wars and they realize it’s time for a break. Yes, it would have been great if they could expand beyond the Skywalker era in a meaningful way, but with the death of The Acolyte, that seems unlikely unless Manpassld’s movie is a huge hit. Or they go straight to adapting Knights of the Old Republic or something like that. But for now, it’s about to be a wasteland unless new things are announced soon. Maybe it’s for the best.
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