Review Bombing of The Acolyte Has Not Stopped It Reaching an Impressive Disney+ Viewership

The arrival of The Acolyte on Disney+ created an expected divide in opinions when it launched earlier this week, but despite the show being review bombed, the viewership of the series’ opening episodes has broken a 2024 record on the platform. Like many additions to the Star Wars franchise, fans were very quick to jump into the available episodes, leading to a substantial opening day audience.

The Acolyte

2/5

Star Wars series that take viewers into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark-side powers in the final days of the High Republic era.

Release Date

June 4, 2024

Main Genre

Sci-Fi

Seasons

1

Studio

Disney+, Lucasfilm

Franchise

Star Wars

Number of Episodes

8

Streaming Service(s)

Disney+

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Set 100 years before the events of The Phantom Menace, critics have rated the show as one of the best in the space saga’s fluctuating fortunes. However, the audience reviews on Rotten Tomatoes began low and very quickly dropped even lower as thousands shared their less than impressed opinions. While this was perhaps no surprise, especially considering that many complaints about the show began before the first episode was even available, it seems that just like every other divisive show or movie to hit a streaming platform, the numbers speak volumes.

According to official data shared by Disney via Variety, The Acolyte scored a huge 4.8 million views on its first day. As a comparison, the popular Obi-Wan Kenobi series pulled in 11.2 million views in its first three days, while Ahsoka pulled in substantially less but went on to draw 14 million views across five days. With its impressive first day volume, there is every chance that The Acolyte could surpass both of these volumes when all the numbers are counted. Additionally, the strong start of the series makes it the most watched Disney+ series debut of the year, surpassing the likes of Marvel’s X-Men ’97, which only reached 4 million views after five days.

Extreme Reactions to The Acolyte Could Have Boosted Its Viewership

The release of a new Star Wars or Marvel series on Disney+ is usually guaranteed to draw a crowd. However, when the first reviews roll in, even a barrage of discouraging comments cannot prevent audiences tuning in to see for themselves just how “bad” a show is. Whether it is for “hate-watching” purposes or simply the fact that, as a subscriber, it costs nothing to flick on the first episode, it has become more apparent that a run of negative reviews can often boost the viewership of a series rather than hinder it.

Whether that is true or not for The Acolyte is hard to tell, but it is clear that there is a lot of interest in the series that sets up a previously uncharted era of the Star Wars franchise in the on-screen sense. There have been many books and comics set within the High Republic era, but bringing them to screens is just the first of many new expansions coming in the near future.

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Although the recent emphasis has been very much set on the small screen, with The Mandalorian and its spin-offs creating its own little world in the franchise, the next few years will include several big movies as Lucasfilm looks to bring Star Wars back to cinemas. Plans include two Mandalorian movies, a new sequel featuring Daisy Ridley as Rey Skywalker, and a Dawn of the Jedi movie directed by James Mangold that will throw fans thousands of years into the past and potentially set up an infinite number of future shows and films.

The Acolyte may not have landed the kind of audience reaction that showrunner and director Leslye Headland would have liked, but in a franchise plagued with strong opinions and an oft-reported toxic and vocal section of the fandom, it was probably always expected. Ultimately, though, the series is proving that, regardless of the frequent complaints leveled at new Star Wars projects, it can still command a sizeable audience.