Upcoming Star Wars series The Acolyte could "absolutely" expand beyond one season, showrunner Leslye Headland has said.
Speaking to IGN to coincide with the release of The Acolyte's first trailer, Headland said the show will include narrative threads which could lead on to other seasons, series, or films later. The show takes place during the latter stages of The High Republic, an era of Star Wars previously only explored in books and comics that sees the Jedi at their peak.
"I think there’s absolutely room for it to grow," Headland said. "I think that especially nowadays… I’m just the kind of person where I want to make sure a season feels like a legitimately whole story, and I definitely pepper in a lot of like, 'Here’s how it could go this way, it could go that way.'
"I also don’t want to leave the audience hanging emotionally. I want to leave them hanging narratively but emotionally I want them to feel like they’ve watched a whole thing, and then still have a bunch of questions at the end like, 'Wait, now that I’ve learned this relationship exists, what’s going to happen with those people, and now that this person has this type of power, what are we going to do about that?' So I think it can definitely have some of that."
As for its ties to The High Republic, it's unclear exactly how familiar most elements will be as The Acolyte does arrive at the end of this era, though it does star mainstay book character Vernestra Rwoh.
The Acolyte arrives June 12 on Disney+ and tells a story from the perspective of the Sith during this time of Jedi prosperity. The trailer opens with scenes reminiscent of the Prequel Trilogy and Original Trilogy before cutting to Headland's own style of action inspired by Akira Kurosawa and other martial arts films.
The show was announced in 2020 but further details didn't emerge for a while. Amanda Stenberg was announced as the lead in 2022, and Squid Game star Lee Jung-Jae was confirmed as a main character soon after.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
