The Star Wars spinoff’s costs topped $230.1 million halfway through post-production.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/18424575

We had mixed feelings about the news in August that Disney+ had cancelled its Star Wars spinoff series The Acolyte after just one season. At the time, it seemed steadily declining ratings were to blame, particularly given the high production costs. More budgetary details have trickled out since then, indicating that the streaming series spent far more than previously reported, topping $230.1 million—roughly $28.7 million per episode—before post-production had even been completed. That’s significantly more than the original $180 million reported budget, or about $22.5 million per episode.

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Writing at Forbes, Caroline Reid noted that The Acolyte was hampered from the start by a challenging post-pandemic financial environment at Disney. It was greenlit in 2021 along with many other quite costly series to boost subscriber numbers for Disney+, contributing to $11.4 billion losses in that division. Then Bob Iger returned as CEO and prioritized cutting costs. The Acolyte’s heavy VFX needs and star casting (most notably Carrie Ann Moss and Squid Game’s Lee Jung-jae) made it a pricey proposition, with ratings expectations to match. And apparently the show didn’t generate as much merchandising revenue as expected.

As the folks at Slash Film pointed out, The Acolyte’s bloated production costs aren’t particularly eye-popping compared to, say, Prime Video’s The Rings of Power, which costs a whopping $58 million per episode, or Marvel’s Secret Invasion (about $35 million per episode). But it’s pricey for a Star Wars series; The Mandalorian racked up around $15 million per episode, on par with Game of Thrones. So given the flagging ratings and lukewarm reviews, the higher costs proved to be “the final nail in the coffin” for the series in the eyes of Disney

  • circuscritic@lemmy.caEnglish
    123·
    3 months ago

    Or because it was terrible, and also very expensive.

    It’s amazing how these articles always mention review bombing, but they never mention that there’s also active campaigns of review fluffing, from paid, and otherwise influenced, shills.

    Disney has been making bad Star wars for years now, and it’s not sexist, ironic, racist, conservative, liberal, or contrarian, to point that out. This show, like most Disney Star Wars productions, sucked. It was bad.

    Mandalorian season 1 was great, and so was Andor. It’s not like fans don’t want to, or can’t see, when good projects emerge. But those shows are the exception, not the rule.

    The weirdest thing to me, as someone who read a lot of the Star Wars books as a kid, is there is so much good material to adapt, but they insist on getting showrunners who clearly don’t like Star Wars, or the established lore.

    It feels like they resent having to work on a franchise, which I can understand, so instead of embracing the developed world, they want to make it their “own” by breaking the conventions, established rules, and existing canon.

    I know that often gets blamed on their political views, but I think it’s just as much a reaction to creatives finding most opportunities are just working within someone else’s creation.

    Still, even if I can empathize on why they might be rebelling, it still doesn’t make for an enjoyable viewing experience. The show suck, the next show will probably also suck, but much like the MCU, I haven’t cared in years, even if I’m still open to being surprised.

  • VonReposti@feddit.dkEnglish
    42·
    3 months ago

    I saw one episode and gave up. Everything about it was just painful. It felt like some high school students got a DSLR and any out to shoot a film. I am really surprised about the cost for that turd.

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    3 months ago

    steadily declining ratings were to blame

    Most shows see a drop off in ratings after the premier. This gets raised as the reason for cutting virtually every show, while ignoring that it happens to virtually every show.

    As the folks at Slash Film pointed out, The Acolyte’s bloated production costs aren’t particularly eye-popping compared to, say, Prime Video’s The Rings of Power, which costs a whopping $58 million per episode, or Marvel’s Secret Invasion (about $35 million per episode). But it’s pricey for a Star Wars series; The Mandalorian racked up around $15 million per episode, on par with Game of Thrones.

    Its crazy that you can go on YouTube and find fan-content made on the order of tens-of-thousands of dollars which get millions of views. Then Disney gets ahold of a franchise and suddenly its hemorrhaging $28M per episode.

    But when you get under the hood of the show, what you end up finding is

    $49m on pre-production.

    $131m remaining. assume 30% for marketing, or $39m - ads, toys, promos, etc.

    $92m for 8 episodes.

    A ton of the budget is purely going to promotion of a show/franchise that should do a good job of promoting itself. And the ROI is a bitch, because what you’re really asking is how many subscriptions to Disney+ you’d have lost if you hadn’t made this show. Compared to film box office revenues, this seems increasingly difficult to justify.

    One reason why you’re seeing content on services like Netflix and (RIP HBO) Max crumble to dust, while schlock low-budget Reality TV, vintage movies/series, and anime fill up their catalogues. I imagine Disney is headed in the same direction.