The Acolyte star says 'hateful' Star Wars fans caused the show's cancellation after the series was bombed by critics

The Acolyte Star Wars star Amandla Stenberg has blamed “hateful” Star Wars fans for the cancellation of the series.

Stenberg played two Force users on opposite sides of a war in the spin-off, and earlier this month it was announced that the series, which first aired in June, will not return.

Disney's announcement came after the series received a barrage of negative reviews from internet trolls, earning it the lowest Rotten Tomatoes rating of any title in the Star Wars franchise. In comparison, the series' reviews have been mostly positive.

Stenberg has made a candid statement about the show's cancellation, saying it was “no big surprise.”

“There are a lot of people out there that I want to thank and show my appreciation, love and support to, so I'm coming here to talk about this, about our Star Wars show being canceled,” Stenberg shared on Instagram on Wednesday (August 28).

“And I will be very frank in saying that it's not a huge shock to me. Of course, I live in my own bubble of reality, but for those who don't know, we've been dealing with a flood of hate and vitriol since the show was announced, when no one had even seen it yet.”

The actress said the comments she received were filled with “hyper-conservative bigotry and vitriol, biased hatred and hateful language,” adding that they “really affected me when I got the job.”

She continued: “And that really affected me when I got the job. Even though I expected it, you can't fully understand what it feels like until it happens to you.

“However, I feel like I processed those feelings in a number of ways, including by talking about it myself. For me, it just became a situation where I had no choice but to honor my sense of ethics, my belief system, my value system while I was in this unique position.

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Stenberg said that by speaking out again about the attacks, she would be “honoring her value system … even in the context of my work for Disney and my work with the big, massive intellectual property of Star Wars.”

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She added: “On this topic, I just have to say that it has been an incredible honor and a dream for me to be in this universe.

“Even though I'm obviously very sad that the show was canceled, and it makes me sad that we can't give more to the people who were interested in it, I still feel a great lightness and joy that I was able to experience it and that people loved it and responded to it like that.”

Squid Game Star Lee Jung-jae said he was “personally quite surprised” that the series was canceled, adding that he was “really looking forward to seeing a second season” overseen by creator Leslye Headland.

The Acolyte is not the first time that toxic fans have mobilized to leave negative reviews for a part of the franchise with more progressive content. Thirty percent of the IMDb ratings of the current series of Doctor Whostarring Ncuti Gatwa, received one star.

Accordingly Deadlinethe live-action remake of The Little MermaidThe Moviepilot rating dropped to 0.7 out of 10. IMDb placed a warning on the film's page with the text: “Our rating mechanism has detected unusual voting activity for this title.” The website changed the way star ratings were calculated for this film.

Before the first Marvel film with a woman in the lead role Captain Marvel When the film was released in 2019, troll reviews panned it so much that its “Want to See” rating on Rotten Tomatoes dropped to 28 percent. Rotten Tomatoes then changed its website so that viewers could no longer leave reviews until a film or show came out.