Credit: Inside the MagicIs Disney quietly leaking information about the canceled Star Wars: The Acolyte series in revenge for its lead actor’s public comments about the scrapped second season? And, if so, how does Keanu Reeves figure into all this?
‘The Acolyte’: “That’s the Guy, That’s Him”
The Acolyte, the latest live-action Star Wars series to premiere on Disney+, was the brainchild of Russian Doll creator Leslye Headland.
The showrunner is best known for her dark, quirky examinations of human nature in the modern world than lightsaber battles in a galaxy far, far away, which already made some fans of the franchise nervous that the show would steer away from the simplistic light-vs-darkness battles that it has a (misleading) reputation for.
To put it mildly, The Acolyte was not received with the overwhelming goodwill that one has to assume Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy and Chief Creative Officer Dave Filoni were hoping for.
The show was review-bombed into oblivion from its premiere (often within minutes of new episodes beginning to stream) and was accused of everything of being overly “woke,” primarily for featuring POC protagonists, dismissive of established canon, anti-Christian, and even an attempt to turn Star Wars “gay.”
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The series was set approximately 100 years before The Phantom Menace (1999), in what is known as the “High Republic” era; unlike most other Star Wars projects, it was seemingly disconnected entirely from the Skywalker Saga and included few legacy characters.
It primarily followed Master Sol (Squid Game breakout star Lee Jung-jae) as he investigated the murders of a number of his fellow Jedi while reuniting with Osha (Amandla Stenberg), his former Padawan. Stenberg also portrayed Mae, Osha’s seemingly dead twin, who seems hellbent on revenge against the Jedi and under the tutelage of the Stranger (Manny Jacinto).
Leslye Headland presented her series as a darker take on the Jedi Order, questioning whether the noble Force-users were really as benevolent and altruistic as they seemed. She also heavily hyped up Jung-jae as Sol, stating to IGN that he was the only pick to play the conflicted Jedi Master and praising his learning English in a few short months to play the role. Headland said:
“I think with the cast, honestly they were just all the people that I wanted. I saw Squid Game, and I had written this character, and I had no idea who to cast, and I had no idea who was going to be able to play all of these different levels and then I thought [about] Squid Game and I was like, ‘that’s the guy, that’s him. I don’t know how I get in touch with this person, I don’t know if they want to perform in English.’ To me, it became so clearly [Lee Jung-jae’s] part, as opposed to [the] the fact he’s a Korean movie star. And then when I worked with him I was like, “this is the best actor I’ve ever worked with.”
Regardless of her other intentions for the show, Headland clearly wished to present Jung-jae as the series’ fulcrum. Now that The Acolyte is definitively not moving forward with a Season 2, things are getting a little unsettling in terms of the apparent bad blood behind the scenes.
‘Star Wars’ and Keanu Reeves
According to a new report from scooper Jeff Sneider (via The Insneider), Disney was not interested in casting Lee Jung-jae as Master Sol and had its eyes on Keanu Reeves to play the Jedi. That in itself is interesting but not quite unsettling.
After all, it has been widely held that Lucasfilm has been trying to get Reeves into the Star Wars universe for years, and casting the Matrix actor as a seemingly serene but inwardly troubled Jedi seems like a decent fit.
However, the timing of the (unconfirmed) leak is notable because Lee Jung-jae recently expressed (via Entertainment Weekly) how disappointed he was with Lucasfilm for canceling The Acolyte. The actor confirmed that he had no intention of returning for Season 2, but also that he kind of took the cancelation personally as a fan:
“I wouldn’t have appeared in the second season if there was one anyway. But personally speaking, I really loved Leslye’s writing. I thought that she was a great writer and director who was very talented in the storytelling, as well as creating characters and creating meaningful structures within the story. So I was actually personally really looking forward to watching a season 2 with her at the helm.”
“To hear the news, I was quite surprised personally as well. Honestly, I am hoping that maybe there could be changes in the future, because you never know what’s going to happen. So on a personal level, I really hope we could get to see further stories of Leslye’s second season.”
It is being speculated that someone behind the scenes at Lucasfilm is a bit ticked off that the lead of the most popular series on Disney+’s primary rival, Netflix, is publicly talking about his disappointment with the direction that Star Wars is going in. If that is the case, the sour grapes of “well, we wanted Keanu Reeves instead of you anyway” might actually be quite pointed.
We may never get a confirmation that Disney was trying to get Reeves instead of Jung-jae and how that, combined with the ratings underperformance and bad-faith fan reception, might have impacted its chances of renewal. But it’s worth asking: if The Acolyte had starred Neo, would it have gotten a Season 2?
Tell us your thoughts on The Acolyte! Did it deserve a second season?