‘The Acolyte’ Reaches 4.8 Million Views in One Day, Biggest Disney+ Launch of 2024

Kate Garraway ensured her late husband Derek Draper was remembered during their daughter's 18th birthday.

When Comcast-owned Sky Deutschland cancelled its usual drama event at the Munich Film Festival at short notice last summer, it came as a surprise. That surprise quickly turned to shock and bitter disappointment when the pay-TV giant revealed it wasn’t simply nixing a networking bash, it was exiting the original drama business full stop. 

After knocking it out of the park with Poor Things last year, director Yorgos Lanthimos and star Emma Stone are back at the box office in Kinds Of Kindness, which looks set to shake up a sluggish arthouse market with the best limited opening this year.

The Acolyte star Amandla Stenberg has written and released a song in response to a racist backlash against the Star Wars prequel show.The show is set 100 years before Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, and the first four episodes are streaming now on Disney+.It was created by Russian Doll’s Leslye Headland and stars Stenberg (The Hate U Give, Bodies Bodies Bodies) in the twin lead roles of Osha and Mae.

died on Thursday at age 88 in Miami, after a long illness. His son, actor Kiefer Sutherland, announced on X, formerly Twitter, “With a heavy heart, I tell you that my father, Donald Sutherland, has passed away. I personally think one of the most important actors in the history of film.

House Of The Dragon has created a significant plot hole in Game Of Thrones lore.The first episode of season two aired on HBO in the US on June 17, with UK viewers able to watch concurrently via Sky Atlantic and streaming service NOW.In the episode, Cregan Stark relays a story from years earlier that King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne’s dragons were unable to go beyond the Wall, the home of Jon Snow.This appears to be in direct contradiction to the facts established in Game Of Thrones itself, in which Daenerys Targaryen did cross the Wall in an attempt to save Jon Snow.Despite the Lord of Winterfell’s dragons being seemingly more powerful than Daenerys’, it is made clear that at least two of them were unable to cross the Wall, with no logical explanation offered.In other House of the Dragon-related news, it was confirmed yesterday that a new Game Of Thrones spin-off series was in production, tentatively titled A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms.The series, which is adapted from George R. R.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor SPOILER WARNING: This story mentions major plot developments in episode 4 of “The Acolyte,” now streaming on Disney+. Who is that mysterious masked Sith master in “The Acolyte?” Costume designer Jennifer Bryan knows, and her lips are sealed. She’s not spilling any secrets as to whether any guess is right or wrong.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor At the Monte-Carlo TV Festival Saturday, Lee Jung-Jae, one of the stars of new Disney+ series “Star Wars: The Acolyte,” spoke with Variety about how he prepared for his role as Jedi Master Sol, the strengths of Leslye Headland, the show’s creator, as a showrunner, and the relationship between Sol and Amandla Stenberg’s characters.Lee, who won a Primetime Emmy for “Squid Game,” says that for 50% of “The Acolyte” role he drew inspiration from previous depictions of the Jedi Masters, and “for the remaining 50% I tried to find something that was appropriate to Sol – something that would only incarnate him.” He also consulted with an expert in “Star Wars” lore at Lucasfilm.In “The Acolyte,” the Jedi Masters are shown to be flawed. How does the show present this? “In ‘The Acolyte,’ what it tries to say is that anyone can make mistakes, but you have to accept the mistakes that you make, and put effort into correcting them or developing yourself, because any human being has some unstable thinking,” Lee says.

Trooping the Colour returns to London on Saturday, 15 June, with the Royal Family set to take to the balcony of Buckingham Palace for the Flypast. The spectacle will feature 1,400 soldiers, 200 horses and 400 musicians parading down The Mall and at Horse Guards Parade in Whitehall, before the appearance by the royals.This iconic celebration showcases British military pomp and pageantry on a grand scale.

Naman Ramachandran London and New York-based film sales agency The Mise En Scene Company (MSC) has diversified, securing world rights to scripted series “Driven.” The show stars Rebecca Henderson, known for her roles in “Star Wars: The Acolyte” (Disney) and “Russian Doll” (Netflix), and Liza Colón-Zayas from “The Bear” (FX). Produced by O Positive Films in New York and created by David Shane, represented by 3 Arts Entertainment, “Driven” centers on Theodora “Teddy” Fischer (Henderson), an Uber driver and struggling post-post-modern novelist. Teddy’s life hits rock bottom after getting fired from an animated children’s show for a controversial episode and dealing with her wife’s departure.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large It’s probably not the right time for a new version of “The West Wing,” but never say never, Warner Bros. TV Group chairman Channing Dungey told an audience on Monday at the Banff World Media Festival.

The Acolyte is off to a promising start on Disney+.

Warning: Spoilers ahead Star Wars fans have been left reeling by the shock of a major name actor being killed off in the opening minutes of the new prequel series The Acolyte.The show is set 100 years before Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, and the first two episodes were released to streaming on Disney+ on June 4.The Acolyte has been created by Russian Doll’s Leslye Headland and it stars Amandla Stenberg (The Hate U Give, Bodies Bodies Bodies) in the twin lead roles of Osha and Mae. The two characters are raised by a coven of witches, led by Jodie Turner-Smith, and are separated by tragedy, with Osha training as a Jedi before lapsing, while Mae turns to the dark side.In the opening moments of the first episode, we see a mysterious woman enter a bar and kill the Jedi Master Indara, played by Carrie-Anne Moss.

Jack Dunn SPOILER WARNING: This story mentions major plot developments in the series premiere of “Star Wars: The Acolyte,” now streaming on Disney+. The first episode of “Star Wars: The Acolyte” has arrived on Disney+ from a galaxy far, far away, and with its debut comes two major revelations: the shocking death of Jedi Master Indara, played by Carrie-Anne Moss, and the confirmation that the show’s star, Amandla Stenberg, is playing twins.

The first two episodes of The Acolyte are out now on Disney+!

Trey Parker and Matt Stone are to make a rare public appearance at the Tribeca Film Festival later this week.

Star Wars universe is continuing to expand. When “The Acolyte” premieres tonight on Disney+, June 4, the High Republic Era will make its way into live-action canon after years of canonical comics and novels. In “The Acolyte,” an investigation into a spree of murders pits a Jedi Master and his former Padawan against forces of evil long thought to be extinct within the galaxy.

WARNING: The following review contains spoilers from the first two episodes of Disney+/Lucasfilm’s series The Acolyte which drop tonight at 6PM PT.

Major IP and critical darlings are set to return this June. The big names include the latest entry to the Star Wars saga with “The Acolyte,” along with the much-hyped season two of the “Game of Thrones” spinoff series “House of the Dragon.” Elsewhere, there are the concluding chapters to season three of “Bridgerton,” along with the return of the Emmy Award-winning “The Bear.

No amount of rewatching, revisionism, and distance makes the leaden “Star Wars” prequels good, sorry (lord knows I’ve tried). But teeming with terrifically substantive ideas, just not convincing in the execution of any of them, the most juicy and complex legacy that George Lucas ever left “Star Wars” with—something the franchise always seems to flirt with and yet never fully embrace—is the notion of failure, and the Jedi Order as a deeply flawed and ultimately ruinous organization.