In "Chapter 6" of this year's The Book of Boba Fett, Star Wars fans celebrated yet another live-action debut for a beloved animated character with Corey Burton's Cad Bane shooting his way into the action.
Unfortunately, the series' first season ended with Cad Bane meeting his untimely end at the hands of Boba Fett, to the surprise of many who were hoping for him to have an extended run on Disney+. But as has been the case for years in the world of pop culture movies, particularly in the galaxy far, far away, nobody is truly dead in these kinds of stories.
The first signs pointing to Cad Bane's return have already been laid out, although it's still unclear where or when he could jump back into the story with what Lucasfilm and Disney have planned in the near future. Additionally, the actor behind the blue-skinned alien cowboy recently teased the idea of coming back, looking back at the history of great movie and TV villains in the process.
Cad Bane Actor on Potential Star Wars Return
During an interview with ComicBook.com, Cad Bane star Corey Burton discussed a potential return to the role following the character's assumed death in The Book of Boba Fett.
He noted how the character "was always in peril" during his run in The Clone Wars, teasing that "a good villain never dies." Reminiscing on the old Frankenstein movies he watched as a kid, he explained his thoughts that the evilest characters have the best shot of coming back for more:
“Well, as I was saying to Dave [Filoni] from the very start, where the character was always in peril and apparently may have met an end in the original Clone Wars series, a good villain never dies. I learned that as a kid, Frankenstein, it’s like, ‘Well no, you saw him.’ No, but I saw him, he was killed. And then the castle burned down, and he was drowned and blown to bits. Said, ‘No, no, no, no, that wasn’t him because then he comes back.’ So the more evil the character, the more likely it is that maybe he’s not gone.”
He continued to express his hope to return but also admitted that he doesn't have any idea when this could happen since "Dave [Filoni] doesn't tell (him) anything," and Burton doesn't actually want to know himself:
“I always hope. I don’t know, I have no idea. Dave doesn’t tell me anything, he wouldn’t, and I don’t want to know. It would be fantastic, but I really don’t have any idea. So as Cad would say, ’Yeah, don’t be too sure of anything.’”
Additionally, Burton discussed the rivalry between Boba Fett and Cad Bane, describing Bane as "almost a supernatural...bounty hunter" that always wants to get the best of whoever he comes up against:
“There’s a great rivalry between them because Cad Bane is almost a supernatural, in a way superhuman, not human, bounty hunter,” Burton says. “And of course, he wants to be always the dominant bounty hunter. So Boba is his rival, and it’s like, ‘No, no, no, no. Yeah, you’re not going to get me.’”
When Will Cad Bane Come Back?
Throughout his time in The Clone Wars, Cad Bane made his mark as a fan-favorite character with a regular presence through all seven seasons of the animated show. This made his fate in The Book of Boba Fett even more disappointing after he only had the chance to appear in barely over one episode of live-action storytelling.
But just because he was killed off in "Chapter 7," that doesn't mean it's impossible for him to make a comeback later in the Star Wars narrative. Considering he's part android and how willing Lucasfilm has been to bring other heroes and villains back from the dead, Cad Bane can't be counted out for future outings.
Perhaps he'll reencounter Ahsoka Tano in the upcoming Ahsoka series, or he could even find his way into the bounty-hunting fray in a future season of The Mandalorian. No matter when that happens, fans are certainly expecting that The Book of Boba Fett won't be the character's only appearance.
The Book of Boba Fett is now streaming on Disney+.
