Acolyte Pre-Production Costs $49 Million
According to Forbes, Disney reported spending $49 million on pre-production for its upcoming Disney+ Star Wars series The Acolyte. This figure doesn’t include the production budget or the marketing the show will require closer to airtime; pre-production costs include things like casting, writing, and location scouting for the developing production. For reference, $49 million is over $5 million more than the pre-production cost of the movie Rogue One, and the pre-production budget for The Last Jedi was only 17% more expensive; those films went on to have total budgets of $265 million and $317 million, respectively.
This is just strange. I haven’t been nearly as hostile toward The Acolyte as many, but putting this much money behind an untested spinoff is just dumb. Who even knows how The Acolyte will fare once it starts streaming? Even The Mandalorian, their biggest Star Wars hit on Disney+, has spiraled in ratings in its last season. I’m hopeful The Acolyte will be good, but I have to question Disney and Lucasfilm putting so many eggs in one basket.
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Lately, I have liked the look and tone of live action type Star Wars. It’s the casting, acting and maybe story-flow and dialogue that has been lacking. It’s a really strange situation. Like they can build the world well, be the actual characters are just a little bit off. It’s like everything is set up right, but there’s nothing going on in it.