“Dodged a bullet like Neo”: Keanu Reeves Almost Made the Worst Career Decision in The Acolyte But That’s Good News for His Star Wars Future

With every advantageous match made in the industry, fans find yet another cause to hold on to the dying theatrical business for just another minute. But a situation like this calls for unyielding attention. Keanu Reeves’ debut in the Star Wars franchise was almost written in stone, given how the actor in all his zen idealism and demure (yet, very cool) personality gives off the exact aura of a Jedi Master.

In the case of Reeves’ casting, the studio and the audience benefit mutually in their shared sense of joy and success. However, before the deal fell through even before it could be put to pen and paper. With scheduling conflicts being one of the leading causes of the industry’s hold-ups, it seems as though Reeves is not yet ready to take off for the galaxy far, far away.

Keanu Reeves Was Born to Be a Jedi Master

The astounding career evolution of the late ’80s star, Keanu Reeves, who was once tagged for playing one half of the legendary duo, Bill & Ted, gained an irreproachable peak with his role in the Wachowski duo’s The Matrix. The 1999 film was, on one hand, revolutionary to the sci-fi genre and on the other, disruptive to the very fabric of reality.

However, amid all the haze and confusion of living in the Simulation, Reeves gradually rose to unparalleled fame and recognition, compounded over the years by his overly kind and all too genial personality. The actor’s real-life identity became such a part of mainstream pop culture discourse that fans know him just as much for sharing a burger with a homeless man on the street as for his role as the globe-trotting assassin on a warpath.

It was only a matter of time before someone put two and two together and decided that Keanu Reeves was as close to a real-life Jedi Master as one was going to get in the industry. However, the actor’s career comeback that came in 2014 with his violent resurrection in John Wick is still going strong as the studio prepares for the fifth (and unwanted) installment of the franchise.

As such, scheduling conflict became a wedge in the fans’ unrealized dreams of witnessing Keanu Reeves wield a lightsaber and the actor’s unrealized potential as a Jedi Master.

Keanu Reeves Gets Tangled Up With The Acolyte

In a shocking revelation, industry insider Jeff Sneider revealed that the role of Master Sol, which was so elegantly portrayed by Lee Jung-jae of Squid Game fame, was in fact initially designed for Keanu Reeves. But despite the enthusiasm that comes with visualizing Reeves in a Jedi robe and introducing a new form of martial arts known as lightsaber-fu to the world of Star Wars, it is a good thing that the actor had to turn down his role in The Acolyte. Or, in the words of a Twitter fan:

Dodged a bullet like Neo

— Gemini Jack (@GeminiJack11) August 24, 2024

Expand Tweet

Although the efforts of the South Korean actor can be held as a masterpiece in its own entity, as a whole, The Acolyte is a tragic victim of the modern fan culture which dictates the rise and fall of ideas and projects in the industry by the force of mass consensus.

The controversy surrounding the Star Wars series helmed by Leslye Headland is a double-edged sword – detrimental to the expansion of the galaxy far, far away conceived by the imagination of George Lucas; meanwhile, The Acolyte also fails to satisfy radical loyalists of Lucas’s franchise whose arguments against the series goes against Star Wars’ entire premise based on the endless potential and explorable possibilities of the universe.

It is a good thing that Keanu Reeves was provoked by divine intervention to stay away from The Acolyte so that his debut in the Lucasfilm industry can be a far more respectable one and hopefully in a project that exists free of fan criticism.

The Acolyte is streaming on Disney+