We spoke to a leading streaming expert about The Acolyte, Skeleton Crew, Star Wars Fatigue and more

AND Star Wars Is fatigue really a thing, and was 2024 as bad a year for the franchise as the fandom seems to believe? We are coming to the end of what seems to have been a difficult year for Star Wars. The Acolyte became the first Star Wars Disney+ TV show will be canceled, leaving fandom divided. Since then, there have been conversations about “Star Wars fatigue” — the idea that the constant stream of shows simply burned out the franchise.

It's very difficult to get a sense of what's really going on behind the scenes at Disney. Like all streaming companies, the House of Mouse guards its statistics jealously. Curious to know more, especially after conversations about Star Wars: Skeleton Crewaudience, we reached out to Luminate – one of the most well-known third-party analytics companies in the US. We spoke to Jimmy Doyle, film and TV director and analyst at Luminate, and a die-hard Star Wars fan to find out what the statistics suggest.

2024 was definitely a difficult year for Star Wars

As good as Star Wars animation may be, it's unfortunately a fact that live-action shows are the real moneymakers for Disney. “When you look at animated titles, they will have a much smaller audience in terms of viewership than live action,“Doyle explains.”This is quite typical. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's just that they're not that valuable when it comes to Disney/Lucasfilm. They're valuable for keeping fans engaged and things like that, but the live action is what's most important to them when we look at the raw audience.“

Looking at the live action, 2024 has “it was definitely a bad year for them,“Doyle confirms.”The Acolyte… had a smaller audience than most other Star Wars shows when it premiered, and then it didn't gain an audience,” he continued. “In fact, it lost a little audience during its exhibition. So with that loss of viewership, plus the critical reception of the show, those two things kind of lead you to cancellation.“As for Skeleton CrewIt's currently difficult to say; although the show opened 44% lower than The Acolyteit was less expensiveand it's difficult to predict how the show will perform over the Christmas period.

Canceling Acolyte makes perfect sense

“The Acolyte was actually the first one that I think you would say legitimately performed poorly compared to the other Star Wars shows,” Doyle notes. He points out that the audience was 47% lower than Ahsoka in the first 26 weeks of release – and that's a particularly worrying statistic, because Ahsoka It sits in the middle of the pack and is pretty solid in terms of viewership. “That said, this is still one of the biggest shows on Disney+ this year,” he continues. “It’s a little lower than the level set for Star Wars titles.” The AcolyteThe main problem was the cost, because the program was simply too expensive for that audience.

This doesn't (necessarily) mean that Star Wars fatigue is a real thing

The problem, however, is that it is very difficult to say whether all this translates into Star Wars fatigue. The shows are very different; as Doyle points out, you can't imagine a five-year-old settling down to watch Andor. Most of these shows had something solid as a hook, something viewers already identified with; The Mandalorian pre-existing characters were missing, but “there's a guy who looks like Boba Fett and has a Baby Yoda; these are things that people are familiar with. The Acolyte has Jedi, but it's very different from anything else in the franchise. And then with Skeleton Crew… there are these kids we've never seen and new characters, new space, new whatever.“

This is the side Star Wars we don't usually stop to think much; Established characters and concepts are tremendously valuablewhich means something new and fresh is likely to get less attention than something nostalgic. Obi Wan Kenobi was the highlight of Luminate's data, which dates back to The Book of Boba Fett; “Obi-Wan Kenobi [viewership] it was very high, but that's because the first two episodes had a massive audience.“The curious thing, however, is that Obi Wan Kenobi no to stay strong. “Obi-Wan saw a 37% decrease in the first week and continued to decrease in the following weeks.“

Meanwhile, looking at the details, some shows just play too differently be directly comparable. To take Andor; that's it “smaller audience,“Doyle points,”but really steady, people kept the show going. Andor is one of the best Star Wars shows as we go later, so people continued to discover the show well after its initial release.” The Mandalorian Season 3 may have had a poor critical reception, but there's no drop in ratings and it's performing well on Disney+'s back catalogue. “It's still something that people go and watch,” Doyle confirms. None of this will be reflected in the usual discussion – and it is all relevant to Disney.

The time is right for Star Wars to return to the big screen

Looking ahead, Doyle is optimistic about the future of Star Wars – especially in terms of the upcoming film, The Mandalorian and Grogu. We often compare Lucasfilm and Marvel Studios, but he points out that this time they are doing the opposite. “With Marvel, they're starting to… loosen the deep connections,” he notes. We are moving from direct tie-ins to the return of the Marvel Television brand. In contrast, Star Wars is trying to unite the shows and movies.

“Disney is in a place where I think they're still understanding how the TV side interacts with the film side, while trying to make a more organic interaction with them. could it be.”

It all makes sense to Doyle, who insists it's “time” to Star Wars to return to the big screen. “Star Wars is built on these dark periods and then periods of light,” he points out. “The question will be: will fans see this as a dark period when we've had, you know, seven TV shows in that period?“Still, the brand value The Mandalorian is much bigger than just Disney+ — he optimistically imagines a sales pitch insisting you don't need to watch it again, marketing this movie as something new.

“You've never gotten a subscription to Disney+. Do you want to finally see Baby Yoda in the movies, in something? You bought all the merchandise even though you've never seen the show. Come see this movie.”

Both Din Djarin and Grogu have been huge hits for Lucasfilm, so it makes perfect sense to Doyle that they're coming to the big screen. That should motivate people”going back and forth between the streamer and in theaters,“something a lot of other studios are also trying to do now. And that's exactly what Star Wars it needs.