The new Star Wars outing on Disney+ has the force on its side. Deadline is reporting that the new Jedi-centric show debuted with 4.8 million views on its first day. This makes The Acolyte Disney+’s biggest series premiere of the year. It is on track to overtake Ahsoka‘s performance of generating 14 million views in its first five days.
This bit of news comes as somewhat of a surprise since Disney+ doesn’t usually release streaming numbers after just the first day. The company announced Ahsoka‘s viewership after five days most likely due to the popularity of the character. Last December, the streamer announced numbers for Percy Jackson and the Olympians after its first six days. Other shows on the streamer don’t usually get their viewer numbers released unless they are rather good. Reporting the numbers for The Acolyte so soon after the premiere makes it seem like Disney is expecting this to be a much-needed hit.
In the review from our own Alex Maidy, he gives it a warm reception, saying, “I appreciate that The Acolyte is a new era for live-action Star Wars that presents a challenge for audiences to invest in, but this is old school Star Wars: action-packed, full of unique and intriguing characters, and setting up a story that we do not know. The Acolyte represents a new chapter in the Star Wars mythos that will be very fun to explore.”
Set hundreds of years before the events of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, The Acolyte takes place during the High Republic era of the franchise. The series stars Amandla Stenberg (Bodies Bodies Bodies), Lee Jung-jae (Squid Game), Manny Jacinto (The Good Place), Dafne Keen (Logan), Charlie Barnett (You), Jodie Turner-Smith (Anne Boleyn), Rebecca Henderson (Russian Doll), Dean-Charles Chapman (Game of Thrones), Joonas Suotamon (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker), and Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix Resurrections).