The Acolyte: High Republic SW Disney+ Show, June 4th

[Knights of Ren]

Easily my most anticipated of the announced shows today!!

 

[Porthos]

Wasn't sure if a thread was already created for Leslye Headland's project, doesn't look like there was at first glance (why I hadn't started one with the others).

 

Logo:

 

 

The thing that is curious to me is that this was announced during the animation portion of LFL's presentation, but it was previously announced as Live Action.

 

I'm scouring the intrawebs trying to get an answer, but failing at the moment.

 

I suppose we'll find out soon enough.

[Porthos]

https://www.starwars.com/news/future-lucasfilm-projects-revealed

Quote

The Acolyte

 

Leslye Headland, Emmy Award-nominated creator of the mind-bending series Russian Doll, brings a new Star Wars series to Disney+ with The Acolyte. The Acolyte is a mystery-thriller that will take the audience into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark side powers in the final days of the High Republic era.

 

Still doesn't say if it is animated or live-action, but this announcement was sandwiched between two other animation projects (Lando and A Droid Story), so I wouldn't count out it being shifted to animated at some point in the production process.

Edited December 11, 2020 by Porthos

[Knights of Ren]

11 minutes ago, Porthos said:

https://www.starwars.com/news/future-lucasfilm-projects-revealed

 

Still doesn't say if it is animated or live-action, but this announcement was sandwiched between two other animation projects (Lando and A Droid Story), so I wouldn't count out it being shifted to animated at some point in the production process.

Lando is animated?

[Porthos]

9 minutes ago, Knights of Ren said:

Lando is animated?

 

That was certainly the implication. But I suppose Kennedy didn't technically say one way or the other.

 

*does some Googling*

 

 

"event series"

 

*does some more checking*

 

Quote

Star Wars: Visions

Presenting all-new, creative takes on the galaxy far, far away, Star Wars: Visionswill be a series of animated short films celebrating Star Wars through the lens of the world’s best anime creators. The anthology collection will bring 10 fantastic visions from several of the leading Japanese anime studios, offering a fresh and diverse cultural perspective to Star Wars.

A Droid Story

 

As Lucasfilm continues to develop new stories, the intersection of animation and visual effects offers new opportunities to explore. Lucasfilm Animation will be teaming up with Lucasfilm’s visual effects team, Industrial Light & Magic, to develop a special Star Wars adventure for Disney+, A Droid Story. This epic journey will introduce us to a new hero, guided by legendary duo R2-D2 and C-3PO.

Quote

Lando

 

Everyone’s favorite scoundrel Lando Calrissian will return in a brand-new event series for Disney+. Justin Simien, creator of the critically-acclaimed Dear White People and a huge Star Wars fan, is developing the story.

 

Hmmmm... The other two projects are specifically mentioned as animated, as was Bad Batch, but neither of these were.

 

Maybe they are both live-action after all.  

 

 

I stand corrected then.  I suppose I just don't like presuming.  KK could have made it clearer, I guess is what I am saying.

Edited December 11, 2020 by Porthos

[Inceptionzq]

According to The Star Wars Book, the High Republic Era was 300-100BBY. So this’ll be around 100BBY

[Knights of Ren]

Plagueis hints possibly? 

[Inceptionzq]

 

[Porthos]

 

A massive, in-depth, and utterly fantastic interview with The Acolyte show-runner, Leslye Headland.

 

Massively recommended.

[Porthos]

As much as I don't want to....

 

 

Other sites started picking this up, including Discussing Film which narrowed it to Feb '22:

 

Quote

Lucasfilm is aiming to begin production on The Acolyte this upcoming February in London.

The series will likely use ‘The Volume’ that has been set up in Pinewood Studios in London following the successful use of the technology in Los Angeles for the first 2 seasons of The Mandalorian, as well as The Book of Boba Fett. Peyton Reed, who directed multiple episodes of The Mandalorian this last season, is currently using The Volume at Pinewood to develop Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, starring returning cast members Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Michael Douglas. The Marvel sequel is also welcoming the new additions of Kathryn Newton as Cassie Lang and Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror. Quantumania is currently slated to release exclusively in theaters on February 17, 2023.

 

Casting has already begun for The Acolyte, with Lucasfillm looking to cast a young woman of color in the lead role. Both this show and Ahsoka will be the first live-action projects within the Star Wars universe to feature women of color in the main roles. The Acolyte has been described as a female-driven, action mystery thriller, with martial art elements that will take us into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging Dark Side powers in the final days of the High Republic Era. The series is slated for Disney+ along with Ahsoka and other new projects like Lando and Rangers of the New Republic.

 

Anywho, the female lead and martial arts being in the show was already known.  More posting for the "early 2022"/Feb '22 film date.  

 

(Ignoring the Twitter Drama that Discussing Film caused, even if Grace was in the right [for once] after not being credited for the scoop)

Edited June 25, 2021 by Porthos

[Porthos]

‘The Acolyte’ Showrunner Leslye Headland on Profound Effect ‘Phantom Menace’ Had on Her Identity – and Her ‘Star Wars’ Series (The Wrap)

 

There's a LOT here that is great, especially her answers about representation and how more questions should be directed at the suits instead of the creators.  But I wanted to highlight some things that particularly resonate with Yours Truly.

 

Quote

‘The Acolyte’ Showrunner Leslye Headland on Profound Effect ‘Phantom Menace’ Had on Her Identity – and Her ‘Star Wars’ Series

“I actually was very intrigued by why George Lucas had started us at that particular point,” “Russian Doll” co-creator tells TheWrap

Jennifer Maas | June 28, 2021 @ 4:11 PM

 

Leslye Headland is one of several creators working on their own live-action series for Disney+’s expanding small-screen “Star Wars” universe. And just like the others, she has to remain incredibly tight-lipped about almost everything having to do with her Lucasfilm project, titled “The Acolyte.”

 

But what Headland, the first queer woman behind a “Star Wars” title, could tell The Wrap during a recent conversation surrounding increasing LGBTQ representation on screen and behind the scenes amid Pride Month, is what drew her to the time period during which “The Acolyte” is set to take place: The final days of the High Republic era, a period roughly 200 years before the events of George Lucas’ 1999 film “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.”

 

“What I can say is the reason it did appeal to me personally is that I was 18 when ‘Phantom Menace’ came out and I was a very, very big ‘Star Wars’ fan. I remain a big ‘Star Wars’ fan, but at that particular time, right after the re-releases and the fact that I was in high school, it just kind of all coincided at a time where I was discovering who I was sexually, I was discovering who I was artistically, I was kind of realizing what I wanted to do with my life,” Headland, who is also the co-creator and showrunner of Netflix’s “Russian Doll,” told TheWrap. “And then this big, huge movie event, cultural event happened that was ‘The Phantom Menace.'”

 

She continued: “And I know there were varying reactions to it. And certainly there were a lot of people that had grown up with the original trilogy who were disappointed by it. But I actually was very intrigued by why George Lucas had started us at that particular point. I kind of wondered, but what happened to lead up to this? That’s kind of where my ‘Star Wars’ fan brain went was like, ‘How did we get here?’ And why are the Jedi like this? When they are in power, why are they acting this way and how is it that they’re not having the reaction that you would think they would to Anakin’s presence and what Qui-Gon Jinn is saying about how passionately he feels about training him and bringing him into the fold. It’s like, even the discovery of Darth Maul is kind of met with this like, ‘Hm, interesting’ kind of feeling. So I just think for me, my brain has always buzzed around that area and wondered what’s going on here — or what has been going on here.”

 

As the first queer woman to run a “Star Wars” series, Headland has been asked a lot about being the first queer woman to run a “Star Wars” series. So TheWrap asked Headland if the fact the question itself, regarding the pressure and honor that comes with being the first to hold that title, is problematic when that responsibility becomes the focus to people?

 

“It is an interesting question, actually, when you ask it that way… You’re right, a lot of people have asked me that and I’ve kind of given different answers to it,” Headland said. “But when you phrase it that way, I do wonder why people are asking me that. Like, why aren’t they asking Disney that question? (laughs) Like when people say, ‘Do you feel responsibility?What are you going to do about it now that you’ve been gifted this position?’ — which I feel very grateful for, for me, all I really feel is gratitude, and the pressure that comes with creating anything, period, let alone something as important as ‘Star Wars.’ But but you’re right, there is this kind of vibe of, ‘Be careful.’ Like, they hired me! (laughs) I wonder if we should be asking the artists that question, or should we be asking the studios and the corporations those questions, and the networks those questions. And actually, I think that they do get asked them pretty often. But I think that there’s more of a responsibility in that realm of hiring, rather.”

 

“For me, my job is to do my job (laughs), which is to create and showrun and produce a show,” Headland added. “And I think that there’s an enormous amount of pressure that comes with that, no matter what. It’s just very hard. It’s a hard job because you’re doing something creative in an industry that is not necessarily run by creative people. It’s run by economically minded people and it’s run by people that are looking at art in terms of how many subscribers you get and how much money do you make. And it’s kind of like any other industry that that folds itself into capitalism. The dollar becomes king, it becomes very important. And as creative people, that isn’t necessarily why we got into this game, but it becomes something we have to start navigating pretty quickly. So there’s always responsibility. I just think that as your world gets bigger and as you go more and more professional with your work, the pressure is going to get higher no matter what.”

 

Creating a diverse writers’ room for “The Acolyte” is important to Headland, not just in terms of staffing writers of different races, genders and sexual orientations, but also with varying levels of “Star Wars” franchise familiarity.

 

“What I noticed was that most of the scripts, the samples that I really responded to, they were Star Wars fans,” Headland said. “Most of the people that I met with were people that were either really big fans of the franchise, but maybe not as familiar with [‘The Mandalorian’ and ‘Clone Wars’ producer Dave] Filoni’s work and ‘Clone Wars’ and hadn’t played the video games. And then there were people, like myself, that have watched all of ‘Clone Wars’ and played ‘Fallen Order’ and played ‘Knights of the Old Republic.’ And I’ve also done a lot of RPGs, including ‘Edge of the Empire.’ So I kind of felt like I was very into ‘Star Wars,’ so I didn’t necessarily look for people who were as into ‘Star Wars’ as I was, as much as I was interested in why people were interested in ‘Star Wars.’ So it wasn’t I sought out people specifically who had not, it was more that I was looking for people who I responded to their work anyway, and then I was like, ‘What’s your way into “Star Wars”? What are the parts of it it that you find the most interesting?’ And everybody had a different answer.”

 

Headland’s reasoning for this is that when Lucas wrote the first “Star Wars” movie, “A New Hope,” he was working from a blank slate, with no previous IP to adhere to and an entire world to create ahead of him.

“You want to have people that respect the source material, who absolutely know what you’re talking about, but at the same time, I think it’s important that you have some voices who are approaching it a little bit more as kind of the way George Lucas approached Episode IV, right? When he wrote ‘A New Hope,’ he was not approaching it, like, ‘Well, in “Star Wars,” there’s this thing.’ He’s talked over and over again about his kind of inspiration for that film being from tone poems or from a school of cinema that was much more about visual representation of feelings. And, of course, the monomyth and not from a place of, ‘I have an encyclopedic knowledge about an IP,’ which I have a pretty decent knowledge of it, I have a lot of people on my staff that do, obviously, there’s people who work at Lucasfilm a that’s their only job. So I felt really well supported in that sense. It was more like, ‘Hi, you don’t know any of this. What do you think about this storyline? What do you think about this character? What do you think about this being a major set piece?’ That was important to me in scouting people out, because I felt properly supported in the other places.”

 

“The Acolyte” showrunner also thinks it’s important to make her series accessible to not just die-hard “Star Wars” fans, but also a viewer who is just entering this world for the first time, something she thinks was achieved with Disney+ first live-action “Star Wars” series, “The Mandalorian.”

 

“Jon Favreau did this perfectly with ‘The Mandalorian.’ That was a show that, in the second scene especially, really paid off if you’re a ‘Clone Wars’ fan and if you’re a fan of the IP and of other parts of ‘Star Wars’ media,” Headland said. “You’re like, ‘Oh my God, that’s great. Oh, my God, that’s great. Oh, my God.’ And then the end of Season 1 with the Darksaber, you’re like, ‘Oh, my God, that’s amazing. So it’s going to go in this place.’ You start to know where it’s going or you start to anticipate where it’s going. But also, my mom can watch ‘The Mandalorian.’ My mom, who has like a passing understanding of what ‘Star Wars’ is, can watch ‘Mandalorian’ and really get invested in the central connection between the main two characters, because it’s universal, because it’s deeply, deeply emblematic, I think, of what George Lucas wanted to to bring to the world when he created it.”

 

I got to say, with each and every passing interview there is with Leslye Headland, I become more and more convinced that this will be My Jam.

 

The initial concept of "show focused on the baddies" did leave me a little cold, as that can go so bad so quickly [dark, grim, and apathetic ain't my jam at all].  But, gots to tell ya, that whole wondering about "why the FUCK are the Jedi as messed up as they are [at times] in the prequels" is EXTREMELY  My Jam.

 

I also highlighted something that I think is of critical importance, and that is looking at SW projects be influenced by other works of art and not just drilling down in to SW lore.

 

The fact that she's also coming from this from the gamer side of things (especially on the tabletop side, from what I gather) just brings more spice to the stew.

 

Might, just might, have something special being cooked here.

 

[Porthos]

Likely to get lost in the fallout discussion over the lack of SW content surrounding Disney+ Day, but there is a piece of almost news:

 

 

This is sourced from Production Weekly which is pretty legit for these sorts of things.  Not official yet, but would point to a mid-2023 launch.  Depending on how many episodes/how intensive the post-production work is, I'd say July or August or September as a window, though that is just a rough approximation.

[Inceptionzq]

Looks like LRM may have misread the Production Weekly issue somehow? LRM said The Acolyte is filming in the US, but you can clearly see in the preview first page, though blurry, that the location says London.

https://www.productionweekly.com/production-weekly-issue-1272-thursday-november-11-2021-139-listings-31-pages/

 

They were correct on May-November though.

[Knights of Ren]

Glad things appear to be going smoothly in development for this so far.  Easily my most anticipated for the new shows. 

[Porthos]

 

And two hours later...

 

 

[filmlover]

Go Stenberg!

[Porthos]

https://www.theilluminerdi.com/2022/04/21/the-acolyte-intriguing-details/

 

Production might not be starting until this Oct/ending next May, which would point to a late '23/early 24 launch date. 

 

(was supposed to be starting around May/June or so, but if they need more time, they need more time)

[Knights of Ren]

Still my most anticipated new SW project by far

[Menor the Destroyer]

11 hours ago, Knights of Ren said:

Still my most anticipated new SW project by far

Same, I'm ready for a new era. Although the upcoming stuff like Kenobi has a certain advantage due to being sooner, but adjusting for that yeah this is probably my most hyped. 

Edited April 22, 2022 by Menor Reborn

[Porthos]

 

 

This is going to be good.  This is going to be very very good.

 

Fantastic article and highly recommended reading.

 

(also the comments about a "gilded age"?  Oh yes, that should be interesting. Good to see Leslie following in George's footsteps when it comes to the political commentary underlining SW)