‘The Acolyte’ and ‘The Penguin’ Audience Comparisons Aren’t Really Consistent

Talking about this show at this point is like trying to sleep on the third rail, but as much as I support The Acolyte, I’ve seen a narrative out there that I don’t think is quite right.

HBO with the release of The Penguin He boasted that he reached 5.3 million viewers in its first four days. Acolyte fans have correctly noted that the Star Wars series had 11.1 million viewers in five days. The idea here is that Penguin was considered a huge hit, but The Acolyte was a “failure” that was cancelled.

That’s… not exactly comparing apples to apples in this case. Let’s add another day and bring The Penguin to 6.3 million in 5 days. Either way, it’s the biggest original show debut for HBO since The Last of Us . And remember, HBO/Max is a smaller service than Disney Plus. At last count, Max, HBO, and Discovery+ combined had 103 million subscribers. Disney Plus has 153 million. So, more, but not twice as many. Still, it’s a factor to consider.

The problem with The Acolyte was what happened after the premiere. From the same article This was a screenshot of the 11.1 million figure, which was in its third week of streaming, when the series dropped out of the Nielsen top 10 altogether. With the finale airing, it was said to be the lowest viewership rating of any other Star Wars series, dropping back to #10. Completion rates are a very, very important metric when evaluating a series’ renewal, because if a series loses a significant amount of viewers by the end, it’s a sign that not many people will come back for a second season.

What happened with The Acolyte made matters worse when the weakest episode of the season was the opening episode, and millions of first-time viewers didn’t make it to episode 5, the best episode of the season, or beyond (the finale was also good).

But viewership isn’t the only factor, as the biggest problem was Disney’s bloated budget for The Acolyte. We don’t know how much The Penguin cost HBO, but it’s likely less than the incredibly visual effects-heavy Acolyte , which reportedly had a budget of $180 million, or $630,000 per minute of screen time. No one, not even fans, realized the series cost that much or should It cost so much. As a very expensive project not based on any known Star Wars character, the number of viewers it would have required was almost impossibly high. This is mainly a problem of Disney budget bloat.

Yes, there was a massive culture war on the show and a huge divide in opinion about its quality, but it always came down to cost versus viewership. And in this case, there was a sharp drop-off in the season where not enough viewers tuned in to the end, which bodes poorly for renewal.

That’s why The Penguin is considered a hit by these views, and The Acolyte, despite a higher initial total, ultimately wasn’t. I understand why some would want to make that argument, but it doesn’t really work in this case.

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