‘X-Men’ Reboot Star Dafne Keen Shares Insights on ‘The Acolyte’ Season 2 Plans

Disney’s live-action ‘Star Wars’ offerings have significantly decreased in recent years, with the platform scaling back on new series following a series of shows that struggled to resonate with viewers. One of the notable casualties of this shift was ‘The Acolyte,’ Leslye Headland’s ambitious mystery series set in the High Republic era, which concluded its first and only season on Disney+ in 2024, leaving several major cliffhangers unresolved.

The cancellation was particularly disappointing for fans, as the finale laid substantial groundwork, introducing a significant figure from ‘Star Wars’ lore and sending Amandla Stenberg’s character Osha down a dark path as the apprentice to a mysterious Sith Lord portrayed by Manny Jacinto. With these plot threads left hanging, fans have been curious about the storylines the creative team had envisioned before Disney decided to halt production.

Dafne Keen, who portrayed Jedi Padawan Jecki Lon in the series, recently provided a glimpse into that unrealized future during a conversation with MovieWeb. “Season 2 was going to be incredible,” Keen said. “Like, I remember right now with Leslye Headland from the show, and she was telling me everything that she found, and it was so sick… It was going to be incredible.”

While Keen didn’t delve into specifics regarding what Headland had shared, her enthusiasm highlights how thoroughly developed the show’s plans were prior to its cancellation. Disney opted not to renew ‘The Acolyte’ during a period when the studio was broadly reducing its ‘Star Wars’ series output, with executive Alan Bergman previously indicating that the first season did not attract a large enough audience to justify the costs of continuing.

In addition to viewership issues, ‘The Acolyte’ faced significant online backlash during its run, with much of the criticism directed at cast members of color, including Stenberg. Keen addressed this dynamic in the same interview, pointing out how many people jumped on the wave of negativity surrounding the show without understanding where the story was ultimately headed.

The unresolved ending has only intensified the disappointment for fans who remained loyal, as the finale left open the possibility of storylines involving the Jedi Order’s cover-up of past events and the deepening corruption within its ranks. Whatever Headland had planned for those plotlines will likely never reach the screen in their originally intended form.

Currently, Disney has significantly fewer live-action ‘Star Wars’ series in active production than it once did, with ‘Ahsoka’ Season 2 being the only new series on the horizon, expected to premiere early next year. On the film side, ‘Star Wars: Starfighter,’ starring Ryan Gosling and set after the events of 2019’s ‘The Rise of Skywalker,’ is slated for release on May 28, 2027.

As for Keen, she has upcoming roles in the films ‘The Marshmallow Experiment’ and ‘Night Comes,’ continuing her career beyond the galaxy far, far away, even as ‘The Acolyte’ remains a passion project she clearly hasn’t fully moved on from. With no signs of the show returning anytime soon, fans will likely have to settle for these secondhand insights into what could have been rather than a genuine continuation.

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