It’s official: Skeleton Crew is a flop. It has become the lowest-performing Star Wars project to date. Not a single episode of Skeleton Crew made it onto Nielsen’s streaming ratings charts—a grim first for the once-unshakable franchise.

As first pointed out by Cosmic Book News, even with all eight episodes released, there was no late surge from binge-watchers. This marks a sharp contrast from previous Star Wars series, even those considered underwhelming.

The ship goes to lightspeed on Star Wars Skeleton Crew – YouTube, Star Wars

In the week that Skeleton Crew episode eight premiered, the #10 spot on Nielsen’s ratings chart went to Apple TV’s Silo, with 396 million minutes viewed. Since Skeleton Crew didn’t appear on the chart, its finale clearly failed to reach even that low bar. And because Nielsen measures total minutes for all episodes watched during the week, it’s evident that Skeleton Crew failed to generate any significant binge-watching activity.

For perspective, even The Acolyte premiered with 488 million minutes for its first two episodes, averaging 244 million per episode. Andor, a series praised by critics but considered a slower-paced niche show, debuted with 624 million minutes across three episodes, averaging 208 million per episode. Yet Skeleton Crew, with two premiere episodes, failed to clear even 191 million minutes per episode.

The collapse is even more shocking when compared to The Mandalorian Season 2 finale, which achieved a staggering 1.336 billion minutes of viewing in a single week. That means over 70% of Disney+ Star Wars viewers have vanished since the franchise’s peak.

Neel on Star Wars Skeleton Crew – YouTube, Star Wars

Samba TV, which often highlights streaming numbers, has also remained silent on Skeleton Crew, consistent with its tendency to skip poorly performing Disney+ titles. This omission has fueled speculation that Disney, a stakeholder in Samba TV, may be suppressing coverage of embarrassing metrics.

Did The Acolyte Kill Star Wars?

The collapse of Skeleton Crew may be less about the show itself and more about the wreckage left behind by The Acolyte. Leslye Headland’s Acolyte was widely panned, generating intense backlash from longtime fans who felt it embodied everything wrong with modern Star Wars—poor writing, divisive themes, and a disconnect from what made the franchise beloved.

But more devastating than outrage was the apathy it created. By the time Skeleton Crew arrived, the audience had already checked out.

A chart comparing Ahsoka, The Acolyte, and Skeleton Crew Star Wars shows on Disney+ – Luminate

The timeline supports this theory. After The Acolyte’s disastrous run, Star Wars fans who once watched every project—even out of morbid curiosity—chose to skip Skeleton Crew entirely. The series didn’t just lose casual viewers; it lost the hardcore fanbase, the lifeblood of Star Wars’ cultural dominance. Many of these viewers expressed that they were simply too fatigued by Disney’s mishandling of the franchise to give another show a chance.

This isn’t just fan speculation. The Luminate 2024-25 streaming report confirmed that Skeleton Crew is the lowest-performing Star Wars series to date, a direct indicator of how The Acolyte’s failure poisoned the well. Even Ahsoka, which had a lukewarm reception, outperformed Skeleton Crew. The message from audiences is clear: The damage from The Acolyte was catastrophic.

Mother Aniseya (Jodie Turner-Smith) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©.

In essence, The Acolyte didn’t just fail as a show; it actively hurt the brand. Instead of reigniting excitement for the Star Wars universe, it became the final straw that turned indifference into the franchise’s new norm. Once, the question was whether Star Wars could recover from bad movies. Now, it’s whether it can recover from fans simply not caring anymore.

The Acolyte didn’t finish off Star Wars on its own, but it may have been the final nail in the coffin. Star Wars interest has been waning since the release of Rian Johnson’s Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. Since then, the company has seen diminishing returns with bright spots here and there like The Mandalorian’s first two seasons. The decline of Star Wars under Kathleen Kennedy has been a slow steady march to failure, but it’s all together possible that we may have reached the bottom of the barrel at long last.

A Franchise in Freefall

The failure of Skeleton Crew raises serious questions about Star Wars’ viability as a brand. Once the gold standard of science fiction and fantasy storytelling, Star Wars now seems incapable of rallying even its most devoted fans. Under the leadership of Kathleen Kennedy and creatives like Leslye Headland, the franchise has stumbled from one disappointment to another.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – MAY 23: Kathleen Kennedy, President, Lucasfilm attends the launch event for Lucasfilm’s new Star Wars series The Acolyte at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California on May 23, 2024. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)

The once-evergreen cultural juggernaut that shaped pop culture for decades is now struggling to even register with audiences. The numbers don’t lie: The Force has truly faded.

Are you surprised by these abysmal Skeleton Crew ratings? Sound off in the comments and let us know.