Everything We Learned Today About ‘The Acolyte’
We may have been complaining for months about the lack of information around The Acolyte, but those days are now gone. Lucasfilm kicked off its big marketing push for the Leslye Headland-run series this week, and they’ve done so in a great way. Besides releasing a teaser trailer and two teaser posters, they have also dumped on us a load of information that we’ll be condensing here into a digestible piece.
The Acolyte Teaser Trailer
The first teaser trailer for the show was revealed today (see it below). It has some similarities to the one revealed last year to the people who attended Star Wars Celebration, but a full, more detailed trailer should be expected later.
AMC has confirmed that a new special look will play after the film during The Phantom Menace‘s re-release in theaters on May 3, so a full trailer could follow that. It would line up with being out around four weeks before the show comes out.
The Acolyte Release Date
The first two episodes of The Acolyte will be released on Disney Plus on June 4, at 6pm PT/9pm ET. Each of the six subsequent episodes is expected to air weekly each Tuesday evening (US time) after that. In Europe, it will be 2am BST/3am CET on Wednesdays.
Leslye Headland told The Hollywood Reporter that they are essentially done with post-production on the series, minus some small ADR revisions that may have already happened:
“We are done! I mean, there’s a few things getting wrapped up. We were a little late on the ADR because of the actors’ strike, but as far as I know, I believe all of that has been approved and delivered.”
The Acolyte Posters
The first two teaser posters were also released, tied to the trailer. Character posters and a main one for the show should arrive around the release of the main trailer:
What Is the Story of The Acolyte?
Story specifics remain fuzzy at this time. We know that Amandla Stenberg’s character, Mae, is the central focus of the story. She seems to be an assassin of sorts hunting down Carrie-Anne Moss’ Master Indara. She also faces off against Lee Jung-jae’s Master Sol, who may have been her former Master. At some point, her doings will alert other Jedi as they find out about a murder streak. Whether Mae is responsible for that, we don’t know yet. As they say, “Always two there are.” We still know nothing about Mae’s dark-side Master.
However, Leslye Headland has told us that “whatever you think The Acolyte is, it’s not that,” so we’ll have to wait two-and-a-half more months to see for ourselves. In the meantime, here’s the curated, official synopsis for the series:
In The Acolyte, an investigation into a shocking crime spree pits a respected Jedi Master (Lee Jung-jae) against a dangerous warrior from his past (Amandla Stenberg). As more clues emerge, they travel down a dark path where sinister forces reveal all is not what it seems….
Headland told The Hollywood Reporter that the narrative will include the Jedi and Sith perspectives, all of them centered around Amandla Stenberg’s character, Mae. Headland has also insisted in the past that the focus of the show will be on female villains, so whether those two perspectives are featured in equal measure, she didn’t tell THR.
How Long Are the Episodes?
Leslye Headland confirmed to Collider that all eight episodes will be in the 30-35 minute range on average. The finale will clock in closer to 40 minutes, while some episodes might not reach a 30-minute runtime.
The Directors of The Acolyte
StarWars.com also confirmed today who will be directing each episode of the first season. Leslye Headland helms the first two episodes, with Kogonada doing episodes 3 and 7. Alex Garcia Lopez directs episodes 4-5, while Hanelle Culpepper did episodes 6 and 8.
Who Is Who In the Series?
One of the big information dumps of the day has been the load of character names and descriptions that made their way into the official Star Wars Databank. Here is a quick breakdown, but scroll down for images of all the characters listed here:
- Amandla Stenberg plays Mae, who gets swept up into a sinister mystery—one that puts her into the center of a conflict in unexpected ways.
- Lee Jung-jae plays Master Sol, a wise, highly respected, powerful Jedi Master, strong in the ways of the Force, who is going through emotional conflict.
- Manny Jacinto plays Qimir, a former smuggler who now makes his living as a trader, procuring unusual things and enjoying a life of leisure.
- Carrie-Anne Moss plays Master Indara, a Jedi Master of great physical and mental skill.
- Dean Charles Chapman plays Master Torbin. Character specifics have not been disclosed.
- Joonas Suotamo plays Jedi Master Kelnacca, a loner who lives a solitary life.
- Jodie Turner-Smith plays Mother Aniseya, the leader of a coven of Witches who value their independence and the preservation of their beliefs and powers.
- Charlie Barnett plays Yord Fandar, a Jedi Knight and guardian from the Jedi Temple, is an overachiever and a rule follower. His need to be a by-the-book Jedi can cloud his mind.
- Dafne Keen plays Jedi Padawan Jecki Lon, the Padawan apprentice to Master Sol. Although she is young, she projects calm and conducts herself with maturity.
- Rebecca Henderson plays Vernestra Rwoh, an elder Jedi Master who has ascended the ranks of the Jedi from a teenage prodigy to a leader in the Order.
Did The Acolyte Use The Volume?
No! This was one of the major reveals from Leslye Headland’s conversation with The Hollywood Reporter. The series filmed for a long time in Shinfield Studios, just west of London, which has been adding some StageCraft soundstages over the past few years. Because of that, we were under the impression that they’d be using the technology pioneered by The Mandalorian, albeit in a more limited capacity. However, this is not the case, as Headland explained:
“We didn’t use the Volume at all, so it was a lot of prepping for the show. “
Which High Republic Publishing Characters Appear In The Acolyte?
Speaking to Collider, Leslye Headland confirmed that Vernestra Rwoh is the only character from the High Republic novels and comics who will be appearing in the first season of the show. However, she did add that there are plans for more characters to make the jump to live-action in season 2. She said:
“Vern was a character that really jumped out at me immediately as someone that I wanted to see as an arc for where we were with the Jedi when we come into this story. A character that started out as a prodigy, someone powerfully connected to the Force, almost in love with the Force, but also sassy enough to make her lightsaber into a whip.
Someone [with] that experimentation, that energy, and then to see who she is in our show, and see what happens over the course of becoming a more and more powerful Jedi, and going from mission after mission, to council meetings, and protocol, and ‘how do we keep this institution going, how do we check it, how do we negotiate the level of power that we have.’
She’s massively respected, and considered to be one of the most powerful Jedi at this particular time period. I hope the High Republic fans are excited by the white robes, because we really were intent on using them. Not only because that was a nod to the books, but also because I think it really thematically explains a lot. They’re not getting into a bunch of skirmishes, you know? They’re wearing all white, because not much is happening.”
Will There Be a Season 2?
Leslye Headland also confirmed to Collider what we heard around a year ago: She pitched a multi-season show and detailed some of the arcs of future seasons. Leslye Headland said “We could make [season 2] pretty quickly” when asked by the website, adding that they have a timeline for it. However, she also said that she’d like to hear some of the feedback from the first season and also get some rest following a years-long process of putting season 1 together. (Headland has also signed on to do FX’s Dying for Sex.)
Unless she’s being especially coy about how far along season 2 is in the process, it’s unlikely they will start filming before the end of the year, so a two-year gap between seasons seems more than plausible.
The Acolyte will debut its first two episodes on Disney Plus on June 4. Stay tuned as more information on the show continues to come out.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
