Star Wars: Matt Lanter says there’s more to come from his Anakin Skywalker

Star Wars: The Clone Wars may be over as of last year when the release of season 7 marked the end of the series. But there’s newfound hope for those of you who had become a fan of Matt Lanter’s Anakin Skywalker because he’s teasing there’s more to come.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, the voice actor revealed that he’s been quietly working on something in the background, and we should look forward to seeing more of him soon. Here’s what he had to say to EW in the interview:

"There’s some new Lucasfilm Animation going on. I’ve been a part of some things I can’t talk about yet. You’ll see Anakin again. I never quite put Anakin down, whether I’m doing a video game or something new for Lucasfilm Animation."

Is Anakin Skywalker in The Bad Batch?

As Entertainment Weekly points out in their article, the most likely place we’ll find Lanter’s Anakin again could be in Star Wars: The Bad Batch. This is a direct spinoff to The Clone Wars (and some even joke that it’s practically The Clone Wars season 8), so that’s the perfect series for Lanter to return in.

Since The Clone Wars season 7 ushered in Order 66 and the fall of the Republic, that means we wouldn’t necessarily see the character as “Anakin Skywalker” anymore. But rather, he’d make his transition into being the menacing Sith Darth Vader. We’ve rarely seen anything from Vader in his early days (on screen, that is), so it’d be exciting and even a little bittersweet to see him go from being the heroic Jedi to the villainous Vader.

If it doesn’t end up being The Bad Batch, we’d be interested to see what else Star Wars has up its sleeves for Lanter to be involved in. While people do love Hayden Christensen’s on-screen portrayal of Anakin in the live-action movies, Lanter and the other voice actors have become staples of the Star Wars family as well at this point.

Overall, we can see from Lanter’s response that the Anakin/Darth Vader story isn’t done just yet. We’ll have his return in a near-future project. And we’ll have Hayden Christensen back as Darth Vader in Obi-Wan Kenobi — so the sun never truly sets on Vader and the Galactic Empire.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch premieres on Disney+ on May 4. And for more, follow the Star Wars News category on Dork Side of the Force.