As Finale Approaches, ‘The Acolyte’ Is Latest Disney+ Star Wars Series to Suffer From Struggling Ratings
Apart from ‘The Mandalorian,’ viewership Wars titles on Disney+ has often fizzled out as their seasons progressed.
Star Wars may be set in a galaxy far, far away, but Disney is hoping that ratings success for its Star Wars TV series on Disney+ is not on the other side of the universe. New data from Luminate is helping to quantify the struggles that Disney+ Star Wars shows have had in maintaining their audiences, and it demonstrates the problem is getting worse. Ahead of the season finale of the streamer’s latest Star Wars series “The Acolyte” on Tuesday evening, I’ll dive into the numbers and lay out just how badly some of these series have performed.
Key Details:
- “The Acolyte” was the most-watched Disney+ premiere of the year, but its third episode saw a 22% decline in viewership.
- “Obi-Wan Kenobi” and “Ahsoka” also saw double-digit viewership drops between their first and second weeks of availability.
- “The Mandalorian” is the sole bright spot for Disney+ so far, and saw just a 6% viewership decrease between the first and final episodes of its third season.
Things started out well for “The Acolyte,” which Disney was quick to tout as the biggest series premiere on Disney+ in 2024. The series racked up 11.8 million views in its first five days of availability according to Disney, and Luminate found that it accrued 2.94 million views in its first two days alone. Like most other Star Wars titles, “The Acolyte” released its first two episodes at the same time in its premiere week.
When episode three came out the following week, however, viewership dropped by 22%. The fourth episode saw another 9% decline, but positive word-of-mouth around Episode 5 caused ratings to rebound by 19%. Much is hinging on Tuesday’s season finale, and if it doesn’t score well, “The Acolyte” may miss out on a renewal.
“The Acolyte” isn’t the only Star Wars title on Disney+ to have suffered this fate. Last fall’s “Ahsoka” watched its viewership decline 16% between Episodes 1 and 3, though the show managed to finish strong. It accrued 3.98 million views with its final episode, which was more than the 3.26 the first episode of the show piled up in its time.
“Obi-Wan Kenobi” saw the worst drop of any series from Episode 1 to 3, losing 37% of its views in the interim. But “Obi-Wan” had the highest height to fall from, starting with 7.52 million views in the first two days of availability. Even the finale’s 3.91 million views are higher than any ratings registered by “The Acolyte” so far. While Season 3 of “The Mandalorian” never hit the highs of “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” it also never saw the lows. The streamer’s flagship series maintained its viewership more or less throughout the season, starting with 5.72 million views for its first episode and finishing with 5.39 million for its final episode, a drop of just 6%.
“The Mandalorian” is headed to movie theaters next summer, as Disney tries to capitalize on its success by putting Din Djarin and Grogu on the big screen. But judging by Luminate’s data, fans shouldn’t expect too many of the other live-action Disney+ Star Wars series to generate enough interest to turn into movies of their own any time soon.
What Can Disney Do to Stabilize Ratings for Star Wars Shows?
One of the biggest problems in answering this question is the fact that Star Wars fans have grouped themselves into a number of different factions. There is a vocal group who will go out of their way to voice disapproval for any Star Wars project that originates from Disney. While their reasonings vary from good faith to bad, they are just one subset of viewers who regularly argue about the quality of every Star Wars property amongst each other.
However, it may be time for Disney and Lucasfilm executives to rethink their formula for Star Wars titles. Marvel shows and movies have seen similar audience fatigue in recent years, and Disney has pared back its release schedule of new Marvel TV shows in order to ensure the titles they do release are more appealing to fans.
Viewers are continuing to register their declining approval of Disney’s handling of the franchise, and “The Acolyte” is just the latest example. The show’s season finale hits Disney+ on Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET, and if it does not draw a large portion of viewers back to the show, it could well end up being the series finale.
Disney+
Disney+ is a video streaming service with over 13,000 series and films from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, The Muppets, and more. It is available in 61 countries and 21 languages. It is notable for its popular original series like “The Mandalorian,” “Ms. Marvel,” “Loki,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” and “Andor.”