‘The Acolyte’ Announces North American Theatrical Release on June 3, New Details Confirmed
Select North American venues will be showing the first two episodes of The Acolyte on June 3, 24 hours before they are set to premiere on Disney Plus, Disney and Lucasfilm announced today.
There have been rumblings popping up on social media for weeks regarding a limited theatrical release for the series. However, in this announcement, Disney is distributing tickets for free, as long as you RSVP in advance here. By the time you’re reading this, tickets may be all “sold” out, though. Screenings outside of North America haven’t been announced yet, but some European exhibitors have been advertising it this month, so less centralized effort may also be available overseas.
On June 3rd catch an early two-episode screening of Star Wars #TheAcolyte at select locations.
Get your free tickets now https://t.co/PywQD9VYw2 pic.twitter.com/eBozfbdXwP
— Star Wars (@starwars) May 29, 2024
The series hosted a screening in London on Tuesday night, attended by members of the cast Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-jae, Manny Jacinto, Dafne Keen, Charlie Barnett, Rebecca Henderson, showrunner Leslye Headland, and producer Rayne Roberts.
In addition, the first wave of cast and crew interviews has begun to pop online, and we’re seeing a most surprising twist. After keeping some secrets from the trailers and the initial promos for the show, Disney and Lucasfilm have allowed some details to be revealed over the past few days. For all we know, we’ll learn about this in the first 10 minutes of the show, but because they weren’t present in marketing up until now, and since we’re now just a few days away, we’ll raise a mild spoiler warning for those of our readers who may want to stay away. Scroll past the image at your own risk.
First mentioned off-hand in an interview with Amandla Stenberg and Manny Jacinto, and later explicitly confirmed in the Disney-owned Good Morning America website, it seems that the rumors and speculation about Amandla Stenberg playing twins in the series is true, after all.
Stenberg is playing both Mae, who we’ve seen in most of the trailers so far, as well as Osha. Osha has appeared briefly in some of the spots, saying the line “It wasn’t me!”. The YouTube captions revealed the name of the character, but it seems like Lucasfilm is now embracing this.
The GMA website says The Acolyte “dropping fans in the midst of a murder spree as Jedi begin turning up dead and the mystery surrounding twin sisters Osha and Mae (Amandla Stenberg) begins to unravel.” They then add:
At the heart of The Acolyte are Osha and Mae, whom Stenberg describes as having been “separated by tragedy when they were very young.”
Osha joined the Jedi Order and studied under Master Sol, only to end up leaving “because she has so much internal turmoil that she’s not able to connect with the Force in the way that maybe she was destined to,” Stenberg teased.
Mae, who everyone thought dead, “is actually alive and she’s on a warpath,” the Bodies Bodies Bodies actress continued.
Stenberg also talked about playing both characters, who “are connected by a sisterly love but divided ideologically”, saying she “thought a lot about yin and yang and what the physical embodiment of that would be and the energetic embodiment of that would be.”
Lucasfilm may have kept the explicit reveal of the twins a secret up until the last week before release, but some hints have been there for a while. Just take a look at the official banner for the series below, revealed on May 4; in particular, count how many Amandla Stenbergs you see.
Another major reveal dropped in the official production notes for the series, revealed on Tuesday, is that Mae and Osha are apparently children of Jodie Turner-Smith’s Mother Aniseya. She is the leader of a coven of Force witches that also includes a character played by Margarita Levieva — and that’s pretty much all we know so far. Turner-Smith told GMA:
“She is a fierce protector and leader, and she’s striving to create an environment of safety not only for her children, but for her family.”
Leslye Headland added:
“So ‘the power of one, the power of two, the power of many’ is a little bit about what [Mother Aniseya’s] hope for the legacy is. The Jedi are a power of many, that’s what they are. [Mother Aniseya] is the power of one, the twins are a power of two.”
More will be revealed once the show comes out, on June 4 at 6pm PT / 9pm ET. But if you’re lucky, you might check out the first two episodes of The Acolyte before then, on June 3 in theaters!
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
