The Acolyte Budget Reveal Makes You Wonder Where The Money Went
Due to the enormous costs of visual effects and expensive filming locations in often exotic locales, it should come as no surprise to anybody that any Star Wars-based project will come at a steep price tag. However, after a recent report revealed that The Acolyte had a supposed budget of about $230 million for its eight-episode first season, it definitely starts to make you wonder where all that money went.
Created by Leslye Headland, the sprawling sci-fi mystery series earned modest praise from critics, but after failing to grab hold of audiences, the show was canceled by Disney, becoming a costly lesson for the billion-dollar company.
The Acolyte Budget
As first reported by That Park Place, recently discovered tax documents filed by the Walt Disney Company’s branch in the United Kingdom reveal that The Acolyte had a budget of 172 million GBP, or around $230 million.
The Star Wars prequel series becomes the most expensive series in the franchise by a wide margin, coming in at a cost of $28 million per episode.
By comparison, The Mandalorian had a reported budget of $120 million for its eight-episode first season, or $15 million per episode, nearly half the cost of the production of The Acolyte.
No Star Wars Buzz
Despite the out-of-this-world budget, The Acolyte never managed to create the amount of buzz that The Mandalorian or Andor was able to achieve, even with a story that offered a unique look inside a part of the Star Wars universe that we don’t often get to see as much on screen.
In a May 2024 interview with The New York Times, Headland admitted that her prequel series was a passion project of hers, recalling her teenage years of creating her own Star Wars stories. Those culminated in her pitch to Lucasfilm, teasing a Jedi-rich tale that was steeped in established lore.
Headland also revealed that the budget for The Acolyte had ballooned to $180 million, accounting for the pressure for her to deliver a quality TV show.
An Additonal $50 Million?
Even if The Acolyte added an additional $50 million to its already enormous budget, the end product wasn’t exactly reliant on countless over-the-top action set pieces or mind-blowing special effects that ushered in a brand new technology or cinematic technique.
While the show looked the part of a multi-million dollar epic, it fell a bit short in justifying the mind-boggling cost of production. Wondering where all that money went is a completely logical question when considering that the series severely undershot its original expectations, ultimately leading to an early cancellation.
More Than The Mandalorian?
According to a July 2023 Forbes report, Disney revealed that it had spent nearly $50 million of The Acolyte’s then $180 million budget in pre-production costs.
Many of the pre-production costs included planning, set construction, costume design, and casting. With $130 million to work with before filming began, The Acolyte was still surpassing the budget of The Mandalorian.
Too Many Reshoots?
However, in December 2023, it was reported that The Acolyte had undergone a series of reshoots in the United Kingdom, nearly six months after principal photography had wrapped.
The series originally began its production in October of 2022, heading across several locations in Europe, including Wales, England, and Portugal.
Star Wars insiders reported that the production was spotted in the forests of Rickmansworth, a town located in Hertfordshire, England, which may have tacked on millions of dollars in extra production costs.
Source: That Park Place
