In Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Emperor Palpatine somehow returned. It turned out he'd transferred his consciousness into a cloned body after being thrown to his death by Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi, only to learn that his duplicates were unable to successfully contain his evil essence.
That left him trapped on Exegol pulling strings from afar, but a battle with his "granddaughter" Rey (the daughter of one of his escaped clones) put an end to Palpatine once and for all after he was well and truly destroyed.
At Star Wars Celebration, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy announced plans for a new movie that's going to see Daisy Ridley reprise her most famous role.
Taking the franchise into the future, the project will be directed by Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy and is set 15 years after the last events of the Skywalker Saga. We'll reunite with Rey and follow the story of rebuilding the New Jedi Order and the powers that rise to tear it down.
There have already been rumblings about a couple of familiar Force Ghosts appearing in the movie, but will Palpatune also make his presence felt?
Talking to ComicBook.com (via SFFGazette.com) during a recent appearance at ICCCon Nashville, actor Ian McDiarmid simply responded, "I haven't been approached."
It's worth noting that the actor kept his return in Episode IX a closely guarded secret, so it's not as if he was going to confirm anything here. Another resurrection wouldn't be a good idea, but flashbacks that either flesh out Rey's backstory or even tie the movie's new villains to Palpatine would be no bad thing.
McDiarmid doesn't appear to be finished with Star Wars, anyway, as he's since reprised the role in The Bad Batch, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Tales of the Jedi. Those were all set in the past, of course, but this movie would be an ideal place to better explain Palpatine's return and what it meant for the Sith and Jedi.
This untitled Star Wars movie is currently expected to be released in 2025.