Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a 2008 American animated space opera film directed by Dave Filoni and produced by Lucasfilm Animation. The voice cast includes Matt Lanter, Ashley Eckstein, James Arnold Taylor, Dee Bradley Baker, Tom Kane, Catherine Taber, Nika Futterman, Ian Abercrombie, Corey Burton, Matthew Wood, Kevin Michael Richardson, David Acord, Samuel L. Jackson, Anthony Daniels, and Christopher Lee. It is the first animated film in the Star Wars franchise and takes place shortly after Attack of the Clones (2002), at the start of the Clone Wars. In the film, Count Dooku and Jabba the Hutt's uncle Ziro orchestrate a plan to turn Jabba against the Galactic Republic by framing the Jedi for the kidnapping of his son. While Anakin Skywalker and his newly assigned apprentice Ahsoka Tano attempt to deliver the child back to his father, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Padmé Amidala lead separate investigations to uncover Dooku and Ziro's plot.

The Clone Wars premiered on August 10, 2008, at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, and was released in the United States on August 15, by Warner Bros. Pictures. It received generally negative reviews from critics, and grossed $68 million on a budget of $8 million, making it the lowest grossing film in the Star Wars franchise. The film serves as a pilot to the television series of the same name, which premiered two months after the film's release. It is the final film in the franchise to have the significant involvement of its creator, George Lucas, who sold Lucasfilm to The Walt Disney Company four years later.