'The greatest teacher, failure is': Disney axes woke 'Acolyte'

Our long national nightmare is over.

“The Acolyte,” arguably the worst “Star Wars” project since the infamous Christmas special, won’t live to see a second season.

The Disney+ series stank to high heaven, a fact that our totally not corrupt or dishonest press tried to cover up. Journalists blamed toxic fans for complaining about a show with a tepid mystery, comically bad dialogue, and plot twists too dumb for even the most die-hard “Star Wars” faithful to swallow.

Stop “review bombing” terrible TV, they cried in near-unison.

The Mouse House finally caved to dwindling ratings and fan apathy. Disney should have heeded Yoda all along.

"Adventure. Excitement. A Jedi craves not these things." But “Star Wars” fans do …

'Beetlejuice' misses HR memo

Take a victory lap, '80s fans. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” won’t be woke.

So says Michael Keaton, the mind behind the beloved ghoul in Tim Burton’s 1988 film “Beetlejuice.” The sequel, out September 6, brings back the wily character along with Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, and, of course, the creepy dude with the super-tiny head.

Keaton, no Republican he, told GQ the antihero won’t be given a sensitivity upgrade to please the woke mob.

“As for the character himself, there was not a ton of updating to be done there. Beetlejuice, debauched sicko in 1988, remains a debauched sicko in our more enlightened era.”

“He’s a thing. He’s more of a thing than a he or a she; he’s more of an it,” Keaton said. “And I’m not saying ‘it’ to be politically correct. I just viewed it as a force more than anything. I mean, there’s definitely strong male energy, like stupid male energy, which I love. You don’t want to touch that because it’s not like you go, ‘Well, it’s a new year and this thing would now act like that.’”

Now, if Keaton could have told half of Hollywood that, we would have been spared a ton of lousy TV shows and films ...

'Batman' hatches lady Penguin

Hollywood thinks just about everything in pop culture is gender-fluid.

Remember the female “Ghostbusters”? The XX “Ocean’s Eleven” reboot? “The Hustle,” the disastrous “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” remake with Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson?

Now, Batman’s arch-nemesis is suddenly wearing heels.

“Batman: Caped Crusader,” a new animated series on Amazon Prime, features a female Penguin. Just don’t body-shame her!

The show’s creators claimed the Dark Knight lacks interesting villains, which made them turn the male Penguin foe into, well, can we still say “a woman”? Feels triggering …

'SNL' finds its Kamala chameleon

Maya Rudolph may have a steady gig for the next four-plus years.

The “Saturday Night Live” alum previously portrayed Kamala Harris on the hard-Left NBC show. Now, with Harris in a neck-and-neck race with President Donald Trump for the White House, the star appears eager for an extended “SNL” reunion.

Of course, her Harris is the cool aunt with the best vibes, not the word-salad spinner who hides from even sympathetic press.

Rudolph does have standards, though. She told the Hollywood Reporter’s "Awards Chatter" podcast about the female politician she wouldn’t play for an extended period: conservative darling Condoleezza Rice.

“I balked because I was like, ‘That wasn’t a good character,’” Rudolph said. We look forward to Rudolph’s Harris cackling over throwing people in jail for pot. Should be hilarious …

'Coraline' comeback

It’s been a pretty good summer for Hollywood at the box office.

After both “The Fall Guy” and “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” under-performed, hits like “Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Inside Out 2,” and “Despicable Me 4” revitalized the industry.

Caution flags keep on waving, though.

Consider “Coraline,” the 2009 stop-motion film with the button-eyed heroine. The creepy film earned a re-release over the weekend to celebrate its 15th anniversary and managed fifth place on the box-office charts. That’s after appearing on fewer than half the screens most new releases enjoy.

Many moviegoers pine for stories made before the great “awokening.” They prefer modern classics to what’s being force-fed to us today. If you’ve survived “Madame Web,” can you really blame them?