Palpatine is coming back. That much was strongly teased in the very first footage from the upcoming “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” and later, it was confirmed by just about everyone associated with the film. And even though that seems to bring up a ton of questions and theories, considering the Emperor was very much dead (at least we think so) the last time we saw him, director JJ Abrams says that Palpatine was destined to return for the final installment of the Skywalker Saga.
Speaking to UPROXX, the director of ‘Rise of Skywalker’ was asked about how Palpatine was added to the film, and why they felt it was time to bring back one of the “Star Wars” franchise’s biggest bad guys.
“Well, when you look at this as nine chapters of a story, perhaps the weirder thing would be if Palpatine didn’t return,” said Abrams. “You just look at what he talks about, who he is, how important he is, what the story is — strangely, his absence entirely from the third trilogy would be conspicuous. It would be very weird.”
The filmmaker said that discussion about Palpatine returning to the franchise, as well as other plot points from ‘Rise of Skywalker,’ dated back to when he and writer Lawrence Kasdan were preparing for ‘The Force Awakens.’
“So there were discussions about that at the time,” the filmmaker said. “Yet, like any beginning, you want to put the threads in, but you don’t want to necessarily be literal about everything.”
He added, “There were some very specific things we did get to do in this movie that we were laughing and going, ‘Oh my god, we’re finally doing that thing we talked about five years ago.’”
So, now we are less than a month away from finding out just how Palpatine figures into this whole situation. Will he be a Force Ghost? Did he survive what seemed like certain death in ‘Jedi?’ Or is the whole Palpatine thing a misdirection? We’ll find out soon enough.
Another thing we’ll find out soon enough is just how much money the sequel is going to earn at the box office. With “Avengers: Endgame” breaking records earlier this year, also serving as a conclusion to a big story, there are some that wonder if ‘Rise of Skywalker’ will also have a huge opening considering it’s the ‘Endgame’ of the “Star Wars” universe? Well, early projections point to a big opening, but not a record.
Deadline is reporting that the average projection for domestic opening weekend sits at $205 million (with some reports as low as $175 million). That’s a big number, to be sure, but falls well below the opening weekends of ‘The Force Awakens’ (a then-record $248 million) and ‘The Last Jedi’ ($220 million).
That being said, it’s important to note two things — 1) it’s far too early to tell exactly what range the film will open in. Reviews have yet to post and projections this far out are rarely on the money. And 2) when analysts are looking at numbers that are above $200 million, projections are almost inconsequential. With only a handful of films opening close to that total, it’s just really difficult to know what’s going to happen.
Long story short, Disney is going to make a ton of money with ‘Rise of Skywalker,’ and it’s only a matter of just how much it’s going to be.