The Acolyte Premiere Delivers 11.1 Million Views in First 5 Days, Biggest Disney+ Launch of 2024
Might the Force be strong with Disney+’s latest live-action Star Wars series…?
The streamer announced on Thursday that the first episode of The Acolyte, which stars Amandla Stenberg (The Eddy), Lee Jung-jae (Squid Game) and Carrie-Anne Moss (Marvel’s Jessica Jones), delivered 4.8 million views in its first day of streaming. (Disney+ properly defines a “view” as total stream time divided by runtime.)
Disney+ says that The Acolyte stands as its most-viewed series premiere of the year so far, based on first-day totals. It thus apparently drew more first-day views than Marvel’s Echo (which was a binge drop) and X-Men ’97 (a double-episode premiere), as well as, presumably, Doctor Who‘s “Season 1” launch last month.
UPDATE: The Acolyte’s premiere episode drove 11.1 million views globally based on five days of streaming, maintaining its status as the biggest series premiere on Disney+ of 2024.
Disney+ noted that its previous live-action Star Wars series, Ahsoka, garnered 14 million views in its first five days, back in August. (Disney+ never reported Ahsoka’s one-day views; similarly, the streamer touted Percy Jackson and the Olympians‘ views in the first six days. It’s all very… math-y.)
The Acolyte debuted on Tuesday with two episodes that averaged 41 minutes. TVLine readers gave the series’ premiere an average grade of “B-“; read TVLine’s recap.
Want scoop on Star Wars: The Acolyte, or for any other TV show? Email InsideLine@tvline.com, and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line!
Great start to a new period for Star Wars. Can’t wait to see more!
Wow. 4.8 million views! Assuming everyone made it to the end and didn’t turn it off after a few minutes, that’s less than half the typical number of people who watch Wheel of Fortune every night. Yes, Disney has a smash hit on its hands!
Reading is fundamental: Disney+ properly defines a “view” as total stream time divided by runtime.
…is…is the library open?
Do over 8 million people watch Wheel of Fortune every night?!
Edit: I Googled. They do! I’m flabbergasted.
Actually, Luminate is only showing 210 million minutes viewed for the week for an approximate total viewership of 2.9 million. For comparison, Ahsoka had 829 million minutes viewed for the same first week.
So much for the vocal minority whom are review bombing this incredible series. Best way to beat them – have a hit show that will piss them off. Lol
Can’t wait for more.
We are not the minority. We are the majority. The true Star Wars fans who grew up with George’s vision and dreamt of being part of it. An escape from the “real world” where we would not be bothered with real world issues. Disney Star Wars only divides people, George’s Star Wars brought them together. This show is a flop, Disney knows it, but uses “Hollywood accounting” to make it appear successful. 10 minutes of watching does not equal a full episode.
Perhaps you should put childish things behind. You’re an adult. Watch things that are geared towards your own demographic instead of regressing back to a petulant child who throws tantrums when things don’t go your way.
People hated Return of the Jedi when it first came out because of the Ewoks. And what real world issues are the new series adding that you are so bothered by? Kids abandoned by their father? You mean like Luke, or strong female leads? Like Leia. Or how about evil emperors that want to control the galaxy? Like Trump. And Disney counts views as total stream minutes divided by episode length. “True Star Wars fans (trademarked)” hate everything about everything, probably their own mothers too.
George Lucas very openly, very clearly, adressed World War II, Feminism, The Vietnam War and George W. Bush in his 6 Star Wars. They were overtly political. He is on the record, on video, speaking of this. Many times.
Nope. You’re absolutely the minority.
Remember, according to George Lucas, your “escape from the real world where we would not be bothered by real world issues” was in large part inspired by the Vietnam War – and yes, the Empire represents the US, specifically “The US 10 years from now”. Palpatine is partially based on Nixon. Palpatines rise in the prequels was meant to show how democracy falls through electing their own demise – “democracies aren’t overthrown; they’re given away.”
Hell, just look at the Clone Wars – the separatist alliance is called the Confederacy Of Independent Systems, as a nod to the US Civil War.
Incredible? WTF?!
The characters are somewhat flat and it looks like it was very inexpensive to make. The story may get better but it is nowhere near incredible.
It’s truly astounding that we are in an age of television where this looks “inexpensive” to anyone; we are really at a point where we expect weekly movie-caliber visuals on our small screen.
Movie caliber visuals?
I’m thinking more about the cast, the low amount of characters that wear prosthetics, the questionable wigs and the very basic wardobe/sets.
Not everything is an argument. Its just an observation.
According to Luminate, Acolyte has only 210 million minutes watched in the first week, compared to Ahsoka’s 829 million. Mando season 2 had 1.03 billion minutes watched in the first week. Acolyte is actually Disney’s biggest flop. And let’s remember, Disney never releases any actual figures or what they’re doing counting views, leaving it to internet traffic tracking to keep them honest.
This show is Star Wars if Star Wars was made by the CW
It definitely seemed low budget along with subpar acting. What an embarrassment.
Enjoyed the first two episodes, except…killing off Carrie-Anne Moss in the first 5 minutes? She’s one of the reasons I watched in the first place, we should have been given some character development before her death. Maybe in flashbacks?
Spoiler reports are that Moss appears in two episodes of the series. They also claim episode 5 or 6 will be the big flashback to what happened on Brendok. I would imagine that will be her other episode.
Allow me to explain how this works –
These ratings are from Samba TV. Not Nielson. Here why that is significant.
In a comparison of Nielson vs Samba TV for Disney plus shows, Samba had significantly higher ratings on the shows Boba Fett, Obi wan and Asoka. This also occurred for Marvels She Hulk, Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel among others. Samba TV counts anyone who watched theses shows for just 5 min and a full view.
Nielson follows traditional statical approach similar to pollsters. Not that polls are always accurate but, as anyone who has taking a statistics class will know, they are far more accurate within typically a 2-3% margin of error than Samba TV.
In addition, She Hulk, Hawkeye, Boba Fett and Asoka all feel off a metaphoric cliff after episode 3 indicating people checked it out, and then checked out. Expect the same for this show based on the user ratings on rotten tomatoes, also not an accurate measurement, but in all of the shows listed about with the exception of Hawkeye which was close but still lower, the user score was far lower than critical score.
Wait for the Nielson rates for a better picture. Unfortunately we will need to wait 3 weeks or so for those first results. Its inevitable at this point.
X-Men ’97 didn’t even crack Nielson records and supposedly it did very well in viewership.
🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️
Not true.
Disney don’t measure unique views, they measure minutes watched.
If 4 households watched 10minutes of a 40min episode, Disney would count that as 1 view.
Nielson ratings don’t actually measure anything. They survey people, and extrapolate their data set to the entire population.
My mom & I watched the first two episodes over the weekend & we enjoyed it, but we have always enjoyed “Star Wars”. Bring on more!
Great show so far, can’t wait for the next ep’s.