‘Star Wars: The Acolyte’ Reportedly Spent Nearly $50 Million for Pre-Production
The Acolyte may end up being one of the most expensive Star Wars television series yet, as a new report indicates that Lucasfilm spent over $49 million on the series before filming even began.
According to Forbes, the bill for the show’s pre-production budget has apparently comes in at $49.2 million, thanks to legal documents tied to spending on television series that are filmed in the United Kingdom. This does not, however, make it the most expensive pre-production spend for a new Star Wars series. Andor reportedly spent nearly $67.9 million on pre-production costs, with the caveat that the budget was inflated due to filming during the time of COVID-19 and having subsequent safety protocols inflating the budget. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the total budget of that series ended up around $250M, though bear in mind that it was a 12-episode first season, while The Acolyte has an eight-episode run.
Given reports that Lucasfilm’s production team tend to aggressively spend money on their major projects, sizable budgets on Star Wars projects being spent before day one of filming should not be very surprising. For frame of reference, the pre-production bill on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story reportedly came in at $44.7 million, just $5.5 million less than The Acolyte. Granted, it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison between a show and a film, but that indicates that the Disney Plus series could be one of the costlier undertakings that Lucasfilm has engaged in since expanding the Star Wars franchise’s live-action aspirations to the small screen. Meanwhile, The Last Jedi had a pre-production budget of about $57.6 million.
The Acolyte is set toward the end of the period in Star Wars history known as the High Republic era, which is set anywhere from several decades to several centuries before the events of the prequel trilogy, The Clone Wars, and related works, with showrunner Leslye Headland indicating that the series is set about 100 years before the events of The Phantom Menace. The series is the first live-action project set in the era, with the Disney Junior series Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures (which is also streaming on Disney Plus) being the first animated project.
The series is set to premiere exclusively on Disney Plus sometime next year. The Forbes article makes mention of speculation that Keanu Reeves may have a cameo in the series, but at this time, this should be taken as a wild rumor and not fact. After Star Wars News Net reached out, Lucasfilm did not comment on Reeves’ involvement.
Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.
