The Acolyte Situation Keeps Getting Worse! (Star Wars News) 

I thought we were done with *The Acolyte.* 😲

Money laundering

The Acolyte ripped off both Disney and the fans 😂😂😂

While over budget shows is a problem, the much bigger problem is the stories they chose to sink these large budgets into. Nobody would be talking about the shows budget had it been popular and/or well liked.

$230 million USD? Um, sorry Ms. Headland. That's totally ridiculous.

Between the Acolyte and video games like Concord, 2024 is truly a treasure trove of lessons of what you should never do in the entertainment business. The self-congratulatory arrogance, the excessive waste of funding, the nepotism and corruption--just absolutely grotesque. You could have solved world hunger with the kind of money wasted on these vanity projects.

So the budget for Acolyte was nearly three times that of the Obi-Wan show. The Obi-Wan finale had almost three times the viewership versus Acolyte.

The original budget number was worked out using UK pounds instead of US dollars to make it seem less. Very sneaky of them.

With the budget and reshoots…….They tried to polish a turd into a non smelly diamond….wise Yoda would say ‘diamond from turd you try….I say try not’. Hehehe (Deleted scene and dialogue at end of Acolyte)

Is anyone surprised at this point when Paul Tassi screws something up?

Also of note, The Penguin's 5.3 Million views in the first few days was ONLY measured in the United States. That's how Warner Bros typically releases data. The Acolyte, however, 11 Million views after 5 days was measured over the entire planet of earth. THAT's the BIG difference.

At the time that principal photography was being done of The Acolyte, I twice heard reports that it cost over $314 million. Every time after that that I heard that it was $180 million, I figured that if the reports from last year are true, there's no way Disney is loving the $180 million claim.

My first problem with the Acolyte was watching a Jedi F'n MASTER ! ... get killed buy a kid with a knife. What the hell ??? They needed Filoni to read scripts before making Star Wars shows and movies. He knows what Star Wars is. That's was just my firrst complaint. I agree with all the other ones too.

You think with a bloated buget like that, they would spend some of that on people who knew how to write a series. The writing of the show was fanfiction level.

So not surprised that I'm not even going to comment. Oh... wait...

We so need another season for the Mandalorian. This is the Way

$230 M?! WTH were they doing? And why would anyone want another awful season again?!! 🤦🏻‍♀

I don’t usually have a physical reaction to bad Star Wars news but I couldn’t help but gasp when I heard the final budget for this show….. absolutely absurd

Luke: Do you remember your mother; your real mother? Princess Leia : Just a little bit. She died when I was very young. Luke : What do you remember? Princess Leia : Just... images really. Feelings. Luke : Tell me. Princess Leia : She was... very beautiful. Kind, but sad. Why are you asking me this? Luke : I have no memory of my mother. I never knew her. Padmé: "there is still good in him. I know there is still". Padme dying in childbirth isn't just losing the will to live. She feels Anakin is dying. She knew there was still light in him. She gave her Life Force to save him. She sensed that he would eventually be redeemed and she wanted that for him more than what she would have to go through to heal her broken heart and hide the children herself. She knew the kids would be protected by Obi Wan (Uncle Ben). How does that work? I'm not sure, but it can help accept it.

230 million!!!!!?!?!?! aint no effin way

See problem is Bob is wrong. There is not a problem with too many shows, the problem is the quality of the shows. Mainly the writing and directing. Fix that and $$ is not a problem and fans would be happy!

Penguin feels much better written so far. Sadly, Acolyte was pretty idiotic. Only decently written SW show is Andor, IMO.

The penguin viewership is about to go up..the first episode was great.

DAMN!!! $230 MILLION DOLLARS!!!!... if a show was a hit and was later found to be that over budget, we would say, hey they made a great story, special effects, editing, etc.... but NO, the show was not good and where did the money go? You have to look at the Producer, Director.... crazy. It's like throwing fuel into a fire and hoping it will be alright in the end.

With the exception of Carrie Ann Moss, the acting in Acolyte was atrocious.

If someone would have said the budget was a 1/5th of that. I would ask where???? It wasn’t I producing a script.

Their tax year only shows upto September 2023. That doesn’t include anything spent on the project in the year since

I think quite a lot of the money may have be pocketed by certain people, since it looks so bad - Asoka looked way better. Tthus why I feel shows with DEI not really care if the audience liked it. Thus those who pocketed the money got the gain already, if it succeed or not.

The entire management cross section of SW and Disney need to be replaced. As long as this is allowed to continue, it will continue to happen. It's not just this project, it's the entire IP. It's all rubbish, an insult and a waste.

There was never any quality control in the first place

It is what it is. *shrug*

There was a campfire on the wing of a spaceship in space on the first episode. No one at Lucasfilm though enough to say anything? EVERYONE at Lucasfilm needs to be fired. They need new people.

They should have distributed all of that money to the fans. $230 million distributed equally among all fans. If you've ever sent in UPC symbols on a Star Wars figure plaque for a Boba Fett or a Palpatine figure, subscribed to Bantha Tracks, subscribed to the Star Wars Fan Club, bought an original hardcover Timothy Zahn book, subscribed to the Star Wars Insider, bought the Shadows of the Empire soundtrack, ever went to Star Wars Celebration or Galaxy's Edge, bought any Star Wars game for Atari, Nintendo, PlayStation, XBox, or PC, saw any Star Wars movie in the theater from 1977, 1980, 1983, 1997, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, bought any of the DVDs, saw any of the Star Wars series on streaming, debated on the early internet message boards, or ever created a Star Wars website, or watched Star Wars RU-vid creators, then Disney should have given you a piece of that $230 million dollars. It would have been better spent in your hands then on The Acolyte.

in the beginning they teased us with Carrie Ann Moss then near the end they teased us with Darth Plagueis compounding their box checking miserable failure 🤮🤬😭

The fact that Jon and Dave have gotten the lowest budgets for their shows but deliver the best stories makes me SOOOO Hype for Mando & Grogu where they will have like 120 Million for 2 hours.

I'm sorry... but any of those cost explanations from apologists are COMPLETE BS!.. This show was shot on The Volume ... That is not something in development and being constructed from scratch.. It has been perfected and it has EXISTED since 2018 (and earlier) The Volume has already been used to flim ALL of the Star Wars shows to date. If anyone does not understand what that is, do yourself a favour and go check out the behind the scenes documentaries that are part of The Mandalorian!!.. Its all there for you to see. It DOES NOT cost hundreds of millions to make a show using The Volume! Especially one which had several episodes which barely ran longer than 25 minutes!! To try to fluff off $230M to "set production" is beyond absurd!!.. This show for all intents and purposes is glorified GREEN SCREEN. This reeks of accounting fraud?.. Perhaps "slush funds" were set up to funnel cash into?

Yeah g'day, Who 'ken cares the whole production was without direction, a sensical story and just had no interest retention forr fans and viewers. It was another huge expensive disaster from the start under Kommandant Krell's watch. It's a goodnight from you and it's a goodnight from the broken, cantankerous, belligerent, obnoxious, obstinate, obstreperous, cynical Old Fart.

Since this is based on what they spent in the UK, it can't be the entire cost. I'm sure there's been a lot of travel from the US to the UK and maybe some post-production stuff was done in the US. Then there's the marketing budget, etc. So it could've cost them a total of over 300 million when everything is said and done.

The comparison between the Penguin and this garbage fire of a series isn't a good one. The Penguin got those numbers from JUST US-based households. The Acolyte was 'world-wide' reporting. The biggest WTF! for most who watched was "the money isn't on screen". At 230M 1/2 way through post, I'm betting this lil' drama ain't over yet, because just based on looking at other productions, this could push 300million all said and done. Andor had a similar budget AFTER completion, but had far longer episode run-times, and a 12 episode season...and every BIT of the budget is "on-screen".

Dune part 2 cost 190 million. It was gorgeous !! What was Disney doing with that much money?!?!?!!’ Dune 2 was 2:46 long Acolyte 5:29 minute still.

or you have crappy writers who know nothign and if you had listened to the fans, you could have pumped out more than ever and won.. you chose to be losers... lose KK, lose Iger, start over!!

Where's the shills that still support The ASSOLYTE🤔Glad Season 2 got Ordered 66. Trying to bring in Darth Plagueis & Yoda into the mix to try to plug up the holes of the SINKING SHIP did not work. I personally will npt watch SKELETON CREW. The Prequels & The ASSOLYTE should be Decanonized and redone to REALLY share the Maker's Master George Lucas's Vision.

Disney owns both ABC and FOX. Why not put it on one of those channels? Maybe they can make some of their money back in advertising while making the show available to fans that don’t own Disney Plus.

been a fan of the channel for a while but I just wanted to mention how much I appreciate your channel your always positive and the presentation is top notch and I always look forward to your daily updates they are always entertaining and informative so congrats on a great channel I love the content and I look forward to see your future content cheers

Remember folks alot of places in Europe are apparently expensive to film in these days which is why many movie's recently have been filmed here in the uk and honestly yeah this show was gonna fail regardless of what happened on set

It was a great story. Its very first problem was the alt right fans who made it a goal to trash the movie so bad that many would not watch it….as soon as the leads and the showrunner were announced. We watched in amber as theory, g&g, echo and thor gave their versions victory speeches. Not sure why we keep bring this up. It just gives them a chance to clutch their pearls and state. They just didn’t like it because of the writing. Yeah, it’s the writing. They all act like they have amnesia regarding the propaganda campaign they waged. So sad cause it was a really good show.

I watched both shows, i've been a SW fan since Empire and the Penguin blows the Accolyte AWAY! How about they write a decent SW show and we'll watch.

...and the winner is RU-vid.

I’ll say it again, Godzilla Minus One cost $15m to make, returned $115m at the box office, won an Oscar and will probably return them more than double the box office tally with streaming and DVD?Download sales. It’s an incredible amount of waste in money, time and resources for a show that was doomed from the start. The first words we heard from the show-runners was a stream of barbs about Star Wars fans, being misogynistic, racist, homophobic bullies, which is just ridiculous. We reflect society in its entirety, not reflect the worst of it in its entirety, so that was unhelpful. While there has been a dilution they still need to make Star Wars showed for Disney+, or what is the point of the channel? It cost them a lot of money, so they have to service it with content people want to see, which is Star Wars and Marvel. Make good shows that aren’t over costed, I never thought I’d see TV being made to look difficult, because it’s not. Iger needs to remember to make money so they can make more movies and not make movies to make more money.

I think Disney NEEDS to get used to finishing what they start. One of the reasons I stayed with NetFlix as long as I did was that they finished series that they started. They stopped doing that a while back and quickly lost me as a customer. I do not know how common that story is but I bet more people quit NetFlix over that than consciously realize it. If there will be no Acolyte season 2 so be it. But at least finish the plot with a short TV movie. It doesn't HAVE to be a big expensive deal. Just finish the story. even if it ends poorly. Leaving Star Wars fans with a cliff hanger in a plot on that scale is a very quick way to kill a franchise. The only p-lace the mouse has known what to do with Star Wars has been the animated stuff. Moving to Disney was worse for Star Wars than was the advent of Jar Jar Binks. And not finishing this (and others) this will be a rather large nail in the franchise's coffin if you ask me. But what do I know?

It's kind of like Lord of the rings, the rings of power budget is ridiculously high and it looks terrible but the Lord of the Rings movies looked great and they didn't cost anywhere near as much

230 million?!?!?! For what?!?!?! Some of those sets could have been built in an elementary school craft class!!! That’s unreal…lol. So I’m just gonna say it…and come after me if you want…I don’t care. Leslye Headland fumbled this BIG TIME…and something is definitely fishy as far as where those funds went. I joked about money being funneled to the writers and her wife…but ya know what?…maybe it’s true. lol 😂 Either way…what an absolute joke and waste of money. Like I said…come after me if you want. But the Acolyte was a true disaster.

They keep boasting about it being the biggest D+ premier this year, but what else was actually released? It's easy to come first in a one-horse race, after all!

Disney.. Not addressing the real issue of taking a dump on a much loved franchise by keeping kennedy at the helm.. But sure.. Viewers are the problem.

I love how most are dodging the real issue. Everything is a symptom of a larger sickness. They don't hire the best, they in fact booted most of the best, and hire based on ideological beliefs over qualifications. They don't respect the IP they exploit, and they don't have the skill to create superior products. Messaging carries more weight than classical story telling. Central leadership has moved to decentralized leadership, and cost overruns inevitably occur. Outsourcing is maximized, as in house development lacks the capacity to create alone.

your thoughts are irrelevant. if that was Bob Iger talking, then he maybe talking about all the flops Disney has had in general. There are multiple money sinks including Disney live action remakes, Marvel & Star Wars. you star wars influencers are just pathetic trying to scrape something w/o SW content.

I am and always will be a Star Wars fan. I have been since 1977. I saw A New Hope 2 weeks after it premiered. I was very disappointed when Disney bought Lucus Film. I didn't like the idea from the start. My initial hangup was I was afraid they would make it "too kiddie". But then the announcement that they shitcanned the EU came out and that infuriated me. THAT is where the fall began. I will always be a Star Wars fan. But Disney seems determined to kill it off for all but the most hardcore fans. They are completely out of touch with the fanbase. Yes you want to draw in new fans but not EVER at the expense of the fans that got you there. And their ideological basis is twisted. It is simple. Success is formed by remaining true to the core of a story's values. Disney made it about disseminating their political ideology. And many fans do not identify with much of it. And they've doubled down on it rather than taking the hint. Disney, not the Star Wars story, is why viewership is dwindling. The solution is simple. Be true to Lucus' vision. But Disney is arrogantly stupid now. I sure wish someone could buy tem out. It would present the fresh start most fans need and want.

Headland's former master has taught her well.....spend a couple millions and pocket the rest.

I find it quite interesting that the main architect (and her army of INCELS), who orchestrated the cancelation of the Acolyte, continue to post negative videos in the guise of news. The Acolyte was an excellent series; great story, action and finally a look to a period in the Star Wars Universe that finally does not include the Skywalker’s. It is disappointing that a franchise that I grew up on, has been taken over by a bunch of simple minded racist questioning budget, as if you know anything about production.

Does the $230 million even include media and promotional buys? $100 million can be easily added on top of that just for media.

Let's face it while many of the Disney+ shows have suffered from bad writing & uneven storytelling the fact is the entire Disney+ model sucks & the studio executives interfere far too much when it comes to the creative side. If they want to fix things I believe the following changes would improve perceptions... 1. Stop sending out excessive amounts of screeners and having early preview events that are 6-8 week before the premiere. Cut the number of episodes of a screener to 1. At present even with full review & spoiler embargoes public opinion along with anticipation is negatively impact. Unfortunately a lot of the people given screeners who then try to talk about what they saw without giving details suck at how they present what they say. I dont know how Disney hasn't grown tired of interest being killed by reviewers saying "I got to watch the 1st 4 episodes and I have to say it is in episode 4 where things pick up or get interesting". Those statements kill interest when audiences now think I have to wait 3 weeks to become fully engaged since Disney only gives audiences 1 or maybe 2 episodes. Same thing with early previews at Movie & TV festivals. If those getting to see early premieres aren't walking away with their minds blown that is basically a negative review. 2. Change the release model for brand new shows. Either drop every episode day 1 or half the episodes in two parts. This allows the audience to decide if a show is a hit or not. If the show turns out to be a hit the second season release model can move to week to week. Not every show is appointment television so when you have to wait a week & a show doesn't meet your expectations that generates negativity. A lot of the Disney+ shows garner far greater & more positive reviews by people who wait for a full season to be available before watching. A lot of that is do to the fact 6 days of anticipation between episodes isn't involved. Meaning when you are able to have the full picture at one time a lot of the issues week to week viewers had dont exist. 3. Fix runtimes. Cut the % of length of previously on, title credits & end credits down from Disney+ typical 22-27% of total runtime to the industry average of 11-18% of total runtime. Expand the actual run time from their typical 33-38 mins to no less than 45 mins. If you have to wait a week and end up getting only 28-35 minutes of actual story it can be underwhelming. 4. Find better editors. I have never seen so many problematic editing decisions than what Disney+ shows do consistently. They pick idiotic places to roll credits & shift shift tone. However again if all the episodes are available editing issues aren't something you are bothered by as much. 5. Stop letting executives say what works or what needs to be included in shows. With Star Wars in particular executives have stopped creators from using established outside canon or Legends material believing it alienates general audiences who don't follow outside media. The Rise of Skywalker was intially going to use the Mortis Gods & Mustafar lore but Kathleen Kennedy said it was too much of a deep pull & would leave general audiences confused. There is so much material that money gets spent on that never ends up in the shows or movies because executives make them cut it. In Rise of Skywalker there was a giant creature that close to 100k + was spent on that never made it into the film. The plan with it was that Kylo Ren would have to prove worthy to this creature on Mustafar in order to retrieve a Wayfinder Vader had found. A lot of money, time & energy has been poured into things that end up on the cutting room floor. 6. Stop giving incels, assholes, bigots & idiots a say. Unapologetically come out and say fuck off, stop watching and go out and make something better if you think it is so easy. I would love to see just once someone who is a Disney executive or showrunner go on the offensive and ask those voices "Didn't you say you were done with Star Wars? Didn't you say you weren't wasting anymore time on the very thing you cant shut up talking about? Do you not know what being done with something is means? Oh wait... I can see why you are so confused about walking a way from something or moving on it is because you have never been in a relationship to know how break up work".

Meg, how many videos do we need about something you DON’T like? You’re beating a dead horse instead of talking about the things that bring us all joy.

All the money in the world, evenif spent on better sets and special effects, cannot fix a poor story with flat dalogue.

This volume vs quality is what many of us said a few years ago when SW announced about 10-12 shows. Oh, BTW, we need a limited series just about Qirim.

They need to just make a Rogue Squadron series already. Most of the action would be in the cockpit, aboard ships and in space. Given how much of that can be produced at a high level with commercially available CGI rendering software, you could do a show like that on a (relative) shoestring budget and put out something that fans would actually pay to see.

230m. Remind me how much our beloved Obi Wan and Vader got.....

I cant help but get angry when I hear of The Acolytes budget..Why could Book of Boba and Kenobi not receive the same level of investment. It just doesn't make sense and its seems like its Kathleen playing favorites

Wow and where do they go to make up for these overages? I mean it's not you or I over spent on the grocery budget. And this next month we need to have a couple meatless meals to stretch things out to get our budget back in line. No they are going to raise prices on other Disney items. Thanks Meg👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼 🍂🍁🍂🍁🍂

Do you remember last year when auditors went in Lucasfilm one weekend and KK put her house for sale at that time ... we thought finally she is going to go ... but everything calmed down.

Why is this show still getting talked about???? I thought it was cancelled but yet I still keep seeing videos about it on my feed. Lol, who cares, move on.

The Govment gotta look into where thato 180M went. damn Disney screwd.

Is there something wrong with the fans that liked it..? Asking for a friend :-D

The penguin is actually good though. There's that.

Love this breakdown.

Acolyte trilogy and new season $800 million budget because burning money is better than bigot money - Disney

I'm one of the few that liked the show a lot, it had different format, a different way to present the characters, different story and little fan service, but at the end people didn't like that, prefers the same all the time, and it's a business, so why go on in this way....

Disney Star Wars always reuses set elements in different productions. How many times have we seen that Ralph McQuarrie designed archway that first appeared at Niima Outpost in The Force Awakens? I feel like it has been everywhere the galaxy at this point.

Bob Iger is part of the problem. He’s not a creative, he doesn’t understand Star Wars only profits. He and KK need to go.

How much y'all wanna bet Lesley's wife got paid more than most of the other actors, even though she had very few scenes?

what makes me laugh it how much people wanna harp on the budget of the show and how much they spent. You would think they were the ones footing the bill.

I am proud to be a straight white male who completely ignored this show, and now I get to laugh my a$$ off at its catastrophic self-inflicted failure! 😂😂😂

Does the HBO figures include Canada, where it's only available as an add on to Crave? I know it wouldn't make a huge difference but it would make a difference if not. Personally I feel they slated rings of power in the same way as the Acolyte but he we are with season 2 and that's had a huge budget!

No longer watch Star Wars garbage but still get entertained by the Disney crap show collapse

You'd have a harder time discussing what went right. Capt Kirk couldn't find his way out of that Kobayashi Maru.

Alot of these "Budget" inflations come down to very poor and last minute decisions. Like flying the entire cast out to a location last minute. Anything last minute, transportation, food, or props will cost x3-5 times more.

What sucks, now that Disney is all progressive... Their best character is gone Gena Davis

Perhaps, if they planned better, there would less rewriting and reshooting scenes. Other companies manage.

I assume that the most SW fans have seen the whole show (The Acolyte) whether they liked it or not. So they all count for the number of viewers in the statistics. To see a show does not mean that the viewer likes it. I don't understand why the number of viewers is a criterion for a good show. I think it is nonsense. And by the way, for me it doesn't matter how much USD a show costs. It can have a budget of 1 billion USD and be a bad show anyway.

My tip to Disney: Let some people read the story before wasting 230$ over it. The Acolyte didnt really look bad, as mostly all Lucasfilm stuff it looks good, (and understandably has cost a lot of money) but that doesnt matter if the story is just utter nonsense no one is interested in

How much was the advertising?. I think the final costs will be close to $300M

Gee, Bob Iger, anyone could have told you that quantity over quality is a liability.🙄

I think I must be strange because I liked the aycholite if it’s Star Wars I would watch it and I will watch it if I can

She's never gonna ask for a skinny thumbs up, sorry my skinny thumb kings😂😅

This is WHY, Disney should have released the entire series vs. weekly. People digest better at their own pace vs. brute forcing people to tune in every single week. Could you imagine Stranger Things once a week release 🤔 Way to complex. Therefore more people accept it. Simple.

What a waste of money! The production was out of control.

Thanks Disney for boosting the UK economy.

The only worthwhile scene in the whole thing was seeing Darth Plagueis peek around a rock. 😂

With that much money I was hoping for better stories instead it was 50 percent ok very sad 😢

I like your videos and channel Megitha :)

Its all about the woke content that ruined this. Nothing more complicated then that.