On Tuesday, Disney and Lucasfilm unveiled a trailer for its upcoming Disney+ Star Wars show, “The Acolyte.”
In an age of light, a darkness rises.
On June 4, don’t miss the two-episode premiere of @OfficialAcolyte, a Star Wars Original series, only on @DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/Ul3EZubba6
— Star Wars (@starwars) March 19, 2024
Despite the bombast, ominous drama (“In an age of light, a darkness rises…”), and intrigue present in the trailer, a combination of factors has dampened the general enthusiasm for the show.
First and foremost, it can’t be understated that Star Wars has hit an untenable saturation point.
Whereas Star Wars events used to be must-see, can’t-miss spectacles in the past, the Disney-owned version of the franchise has lost all semblance of the cultural heft it once had.
Sure, “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” “The Book of Boba Fett,” “The Mandalorian,” “Ahsoka,” “The Bad Batch,” as well as (takes a deep breath) “Andor,” “Tales of the Jedi,” “Star Wars: Visions,” and the final season of “The Clone Wars,” have all been generally well-reviewed.
Fans just don’t care because there is so much of it, and “The Acolyte,” no matter how good it eventually ends up being, is not immune to that consumer apathy.
But a second, more curious issue arose when fans began poking holes in this latest Star Wars venture.
Do you think there is a deeper connection between Disney and Weinstein?
Namely, the showrunner, Leslye Headland, has had a remarkably unremarkable career — or, at least not remarkable enough to be handed a Star Wars project of this scope and importance.
(“The Acolyte” takes place a hundred years before the events of Episode I, marking a time in Star Wars history where the Jedi reigned supreme. Fans have actually never seen a Star Wars show where the Jedi overwhelmingly outnumber the villains.)
There was, however, one bit of Headland’s résumé that did catch the eye of internet sleuths: She had briefly worked for disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.
Headland, whose past credits are largely involved with theater (she does have one Netflix show, “Russian Doll,” which she is credited as a co-creator for), had worked for Weinstein for about a year when she first left college to work for Miramax.
Absolutely nobody is denying that Headland did, in fact, work for Weinstein. According to Entertainment Weekly, she even penned a play that many assumed to be about her time working for Weinstein.
“The thing is, the play is so much not about the boss. And when I was an assistant, I worked for a lot of different people,” Headland explained to EW in 2012. “I worked for the copresident of production at Miramax. I work for Harvey for about a year, and then I worked for Arianna Huffington for about a month. It was a job I did for a while.”
Weinstein, for the unaware, was credibly accused of using his immense influence as a Hollywood power broker to take advantage of women. The former Hollywood titan has effectively been reduced to a cautionary tale in 2024.
Now, to be abundantly clear: There is absolutely zero evidence that Headland, Disney or Lucasfilm have any direct connection to the horrors perpetrated by Weinstein.
But the mere proximity to the disgraced Hollywood mogul has some fans uneasy.
More so, a completely uncorroborated January claim from Disney-centric blog site “That Park Place,” citing a “former executive assistant for a top level Hollywood studio executive,” made the bold claim that “The Acolyte” was a means for keeping Headland quiet about what exactly Weinstein did.
Again: Take that “report” with a whopping grain of salt because there is absolutely no evidence behind that claim.
However, whatever association that does exist between Headland and Weinstein, coupled with Headland’s thoroughly unimpressive résumé will naturally get the tin foil hats chatting.
“The Acolyte” releases on Disney+ on June 4.
