The Acolyte was canceled after the season first. Now, an executive at Disney explained why.
During an interview with Vulture, Alan Bergman, co-chairman of the company said the cost of the renewal was too steep.
“We were happy with our performance, but it wasn’t where we needed it to be given the cost structure of that title, quite frankly, to go and make a season two,” he shared. “So that’s the reason why we didn’t do that.”
The top executive remarks comes after the backlash by fans of what they called the series was too much “woke.”
On the other hand, the viewership numbers of the series were also low. The strong reaction led the series lead Amandla Stenberg to share on Instagram Stories that she was not surprised from the cancellation decision.
“It’s not a huge shock for me,” she previously said. “Of course, I live in the bubble of my own reality but for those who aren’t aware there has been a rampage of vitriol that we have faced since the show was even announced, when it was still just a concept and no one had even seen it.”
“That’s when we started experiencing a rampage of hyper-conservative bigotry and vitriol, prejudice, hatred, and hateful language towards us,” the actress continued.
“This really affected me when I first got the job because it’s just not something, even though I anticipated it happening, it’s not something you can fully understand what it feels like until it’s happening to you, however, I feel like I’ve kind of moved through those feelings in various ways, including being vocal about it myself,” Amandla concluded.
