It's just a well-oiled machine, and Disney's efforts to "inject gayness into everything" (as one of its executives said) is just nothing but upside.
What's remarkable is not that the barely-viewed, savagely reviewed Acolyte was canceled. It cost $180 million plus and was yet another corporate embarrassment. Bob Iger can't put the blame on Kaffeine Kennedy when he's the guy who refuses to fire her or at least take away her power to greenlight woke trash shows.
What's remarkable is that Disney is admitting -- or bragging -- that they're cancelling it. What they usually do is claim that sequels to unpopular money-losers are "in development," perpetually. Disney still claims, for example, that the Rian Johnson Star Wars trilogy is still a go... one day, when they get all their ducks in a row.
So what made Disney rush out word that no, no Acolyte sequel series is in perpetual development, but is in fact fully, officially canceled?
Could be that shareholders are getting antsy about Iger's apparent credo that "Failure is Job One" and would like some reassurance that Iger doesn't intend to burn their money in a pit forever.
"The Acolyte" will not return for Season 2.
Lucasfilm has elected not to continue with the "Star Wars" Disney+ series following its first season, which depicted the rise of the Sith roughly 100 years before the events of "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace."
The news comes at once as a shock, given how much of the Season 1 finale ended on a cliffhanger and teased several plotlines for a Season 2, and not much of a surprise, given the wildly opposing reception from fans and the less-than-robust viewership that appeared to drop off after the series premiere in June.
The "wildly opposing reception" comes from two different camps. First, actual Star Wars fans, who tend to be male and straight, who hated the show (or simply didn't bother watching it, as Disney has done what a thousand bullies failed to accomplish, convincing them that Star Wars is Stupid and Fucking Gay).
Second, non-Star-Wars-fan feminist and gay political agitators on Twitter, who do not watch these things, because they don't like boys' adventure stories, but are constantly demanding that people fill boys' adventure stories with women and gays, who promise that they will like Star Wars if only they can "see themselves in it."
But when you make shows and movies expressly for them, they don't show up, and the shows and movies fail. Disastrously.
So who does Hollywood and the corporate media keep courting?
The non-fans, of course. They're not actually interested in the shows and you'll go bankrupt chasing "the phantom audience that does not and never will exist," but at least they're not icky like those straight male geeks.
...
Other fans, however, felt those creative choices were antithetical to the good-vs-evil nature of "Star Wars" storytelling, and strongly objected to the show's expansion of the mythology of the Force. "The Acolyte" was also review-bombed, an insidious practice most often employed as a form of digital protest against inclusive casts centered around actors of color and LGBTQ characters, like Osha and Mae's mothers played by Jodie Turner-Smith and Margarita Levieva. (The 2017 film "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" was an early recipient of this kind of trolling.)
Oh, blow me. The most insidious form of review bombing is the habit of all the leftwing sheep "critics" who only judge a movie based on its leftwing politics and "representation" of allegedly "marginalized" groups. They pretend that every movie or show that "teaches the CHUDs a lesson" is brilliant.
Amusingly, Deadline reported the cancellation on August 19th -- and Disney's stock shot up a full dollar that day.
Coincidence?
Or is it The Will of the Force?
Meanwhile, there's the former producer of the revived X-Men cartoon, the very, very gay Beau DeMayo.
DeMayo was suddenly fired from the show on the eve of its debut for no given reason. He was dis-invited to the premier, and later even had his credits stripped off the second season.
Which hasn't been shown yet. Cartoons are usually bought in two season deals, to amortize the costs in making them over two seasons. So when you hear "Velma is so good they've ordered another season!," that's yet another corporate media lie. Velma was terrible. But they had already made the entire "second season." All they're really saying is that Velma's already-finished second-season will be shown, and not dumped in a pit, set aflame, and have the melted remnants of the hard-drives it is stored on covered with concrete of Strategic Missile Command Bunker durability.
The firing of a Privileged Homosexual like DeMayo from such a high-profile project on the eve of its debut was first thought to be due to the cartoon being yet another Disney/Marvel flop. But people who've seen it (I haven't) say it was good and a worthy successor to the old 90s X-Men cartoon.
So what was it?
Well, DeMayo was known to maintain an OnlyFans account, and posted pictures of himself in various states of undress.
DeMayo says his firing was due only to him posting this sexualized picture of himself as an X-Man.
For its part, Disney says he was fired for quite a bit more than that -- "egregious misconduct," Disney says, refusing to specify further.
One imagines all sorts of sordid scenarios. DeMayo himself says that Disney is lying about that, and it is "Disney's standard playbook" to smear the people it fires.
Which... well that is true, as Gina Carano can tell you.
Marvel Studios has issued an official statement saying that "X-Men '97" creator and head writer Beau DeMayo was fired from the series in March 2024 for "egregious" misconduct. The studio released the statement shortly after DeMayo posted on several social media accounts, claiming that he was stripped of writing credits for the show's second season because of a gay pride post he shared to social media.
"Mr. DeMayo was terminated in March 2024 following an internal investigation," the studio said in a statement. "Given the egregious nature of the findings, we severed ties with him immediately and he has no further affiliation with Marvel."
A source with knowledge of the investigation said evidence was discovered of sexual misconduct, and that DeMayo repeatedly violated his termination agreement, which led to the removal of his credits for Season 2.
One of the nerd-culture youtubers, maybe Gary from Nerdrotic, said that what he heard (and this is all rumor) was that Disney was willing to let DeMayo slide on the "egregious misconduct," as long as he stopped posting about X-Men. In this scenario, Disney would overlook the conduct of DeMayo as long as he stopped publicly associating himself with the show he produced.
But then he kept posting about it, including with that wannabe gay thirst-trap cartoon of himself, so they fired him.
I have no idea, obviously.
I'm just rooting for injuries, and bad discovery for Disney.
On Thursday night, DeMayo posted what appears to be an image of himself, shirtless and styled like the mutant superhero Cyclops. "Firstly, I'm so grateful to have worked on #XMen97, collaborating with some amazingly talented folks," he wrote. "Creating this revival was a dream come true and the support fans have shown is so touching. However, I felt it pressing for me to speak up in the wake of leaving the show."
"Above is #XMen fan-art I posted on Instagram for Gay Pride in June," he continued. "On June 13, #Marvel sent a letter notifying me that they'd stripped my Season 2 credits due to the post. Sadly, this is the latest in a troubling pattern I suffered through while on working on #XMen97 and #Blade."
Later Thursday night, DeMayo posted a response to Marvel's statement on social media, linking to this article: "The truth will be revealed. After their Disney Plus disaster, Marvel wants to mislead with alleged contract breaches over tweets. It's tragic it's come to this but unsurprising. Stay tuned."
"The Disney Plus disaster"? Presumably he doesn't mean the show itself, which was well-received.
Does he mean he knows that Disney Plus as a whole is a disaster?
Is he hinting that he will attempt to discover information about how poorly its doing? To prod them into a settlement?
He also said, dramatically:
Beau DeMayo
@BeauDemayo
I'll have more to say soon but must take a step back from social media to find a safer space for me to be out, proud, and nerdy. Stay tuned.
Oh f*** you in your "safe space," sissy.