“David Bowie meets Star Wars.”
That’s not just a pitch for a new sci-fi franchise; that is precisely how actress Dafne Keen describes her new series The Acolyte..
To date, there have been very few details revealed about the series. In fact, the public has only been shown one behind-the-scenes still from the production. The entire project has been shrouded in secrecy…until now.
Despite a cover teasing Marvel’s upcoming Secret Invasion series, the latest issue of Empire also features a section entirely dedicated to The Acolyte. While we’ve known for a while that the series would take place at least one hundred years before Episode I, the outlet revealed its logline. It is as follows:
“The Acolyte is a mystery-thriller that will take viewers into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark-side powers in the final days of the High Republic era. A former Padawan reunites with her Jedi Master to investigate a series of crimes, but the forces they confront are more sinister than they ever anticipated.”
Initially pitched as “Frozen meets Kill Bill,” showrunner Leslye Headland described where the idea for show came from by saying, “What I think is so interesting right now is that everybody thinks they’re right! The Jedi really think they’re right – and George [Lucas] tells us that they’re wrong in [The Phantom Menace]. They missed a huge aspect of the dark side rising. That just felt like fertile ground to look into what’s going on for all of us right now.”
“When you’re doing something completely original, like we are, you want to question the status quo of the era that you live in,” she explains.
In the same issue, star Manny Jacinto revealed that his character isn’t a Jedi or a Sith, but rather “just a regular guy, trying to have a good time, who gets swept up into the High Republic world and the Jedi, whether he likes it or not.”
READ: Kogonada & Alex Garcia Lopez Join ‘The Acolyte’ Directing Team
The eight-episode series stars Amandla Stenberg, Jodie Turner-Smith, Lee Jung-Jae, Manny Jacinto, Charlie Barnett, Dafne Keen, Rebecca Henderson, Dean-Charles Chapman, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Margarita Levieva. The executive producers are Kathleen Kennedy, Simon Emanuel, Jeff F. King, and Jason Micallef. Rayne Roberts and Damian Anderson are producing.
Disney+ has yet to announce a release date for the series but it is expected to debut sometime in 2024.
SOURCE: Empire
