«Acolyte» — a new series from the Star Wars universe — became the biggest Disney+ premiere of 2024. The first two episodes, which debuted on the streaming service on June 4, garnered 4.8 million views per day.
Usually, Disney+ does not report on viewing data for a single day — for example, last August, the streaming service provided statistics on «Ahsoka» in five days (14 million views).
«Acolyte» has a chance to surpass its predecessor’s achievements, but it will have to maintain similar results on weekends. The next episodes will be released every Tuesday (until July 16 inclusive).
Meanwhile, with the debut of the first two episodes, the first viewer reviews have appeared and they can be called catastrophic — on Rotten Tomatoes the audience rating «Acolyte» is decreasing almost every day and today it reaches 28% (interestingly, professional critics seem to be, have radically different opinions and rated the series as high as 92%).
«Acolyte», created by Leslie Gedland («Matryoshka»), tells the story of events that took place at the end of the Republic’s heyday, about 100 years before the events of «Star Wars. Episode I: The Hidden Threat» (1999). According to the official synopsis: «a girl who was once a Padawan and her Jedi master investigate a series of crimes, but a much more dangerous force than they could have ever imagined stands in their way of solving them.
The film stars Amandla Stenberg (who plays two characters at once) and Lee Jong-jae (says he learned English specifically for the role). Also among the cast are Manny Jacinto, Jodie Turner-Smith, Daphne Keane, Rebecca Henderson, Charlie Barnett, Dean-Charles Chapman and Carrie-Anne Moss.