'The Acolyte' Showrunner Leslye Headland Reacts To Critics Of The Show And Demeans Some Of Them As "Fascists And Racists"

The Acolyte showrunner Leslye Headland reacted to critics of the show and indicated some of them are “fascists and racists.”

The Acolyte was lampooned by audiences based on audience scores at sites like Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb. On Rotten Tomatoes it has an abysmal 19%.

On IMDb it has weighted score of 4.3 out of 10 and an unweighted average of 3.9 out of 10. 41.7% of all scores were a 1 out of 10.

In an interview with TheWrap, Headland was asked what her experience was like “to see the show not only get attacked but weaponized by certain parts of the media?”

She answered, in part, “There are some of them that I respect, and there are some of them that I think are absolutely snake oil salesmen, just opportunists. Then, of course, there are the fascists and racists. So it runs a gamut.”

“It isn’t just one thing or the other. So I think that if you’re in part of the fandom, you understand the genre and the tone of particular channels and creators,” she continued. “So in some ways I wasn’t surprised, and then in other ways I was disappointed.”

From there she indicated that Lucasfilm and The Walt Disney Company look at content creators and influencers as a focus group and part of fandom.

She explained, “The content that is being put out by the streamers or the studios is being snatched up by these other creators, and so commentaries, synopses, live videos, all of the ways that these creators make money — through viewer-based ad revenues and their Patreons — there’s a lot of money to be made. … But it revealed to me that there is a misunderstanding between the studios and that engagement. They think of it as fandom, and in ways it is, but studios use it almost like a focus group. It made me start to think, rather than these fans are toxic, or this thing is being mean to me, it made me think more that the content being made about Star Wars will ultimately be more culturally impactful than actual Star Wars.”

“I believe we’re headed into that space,” Headland continued. “Those IPs will continue to make money, but I don’t know how much they will affect the next generation as much as the content that is being created around those events, IP films and television shows.”

“That is a proper business model rather than a bunch of mean people. It’s a lot more financial than I think people realize, and as somebody that really has supported a lot of those channels financially and with my eyeballs, some of that stuff is probably the only content that a younger generation is seeing,” she concluded.

Headland later confirmed that the show was canceled due to poor viewership as well as her own creative vision.

She said, “It was kind of both. … But once I was getting particular phone calls about the reaction and the criticism and the viewership, I felt like ‘OK, the writing’s on the wall for sure.’ The viewership was a little muddled for me, because — and this is my understanding — with Star Wars, you’re not just measured within the marketplace that you happen to be in at that time, you’re measured against every other Star Wars show.”

“We hit the Nielsens a couple times, not every week or anything like that, but a couple times it poked through,” Headland added. “I feel like for a launch of a first season show that was trying different things, I think it could have been worth it to allow the audience it was meant for to find it. But that wasn’t up to me. So I fully respect the decision, even if I’m sad about it.”

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