Confirmation has come, those rumblings were correct.

STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS will have a theatrical debut run of the first three episodes (100 minutes) on August 15th before becoming a half-hour show on the Cartoon Network and TNT during the fall. Rather surprisingly the movie is a dual production from Lucas Film and Warner Brothers, instead of 20th Century Fox who have distributed every single STAR WARS production to date.

The show will cover all the missing gaps between STAR WARS episodes II and III, because Lord knows we need to see what went on during the Clone Wars.

When will Lucas learn that mystery is far more interesting then being told EVERYTHING? Everyone knows the better idea was to set this far, far away from any of the current STAR WARS canon.

Here’s George…

“I was eager to start telling some of them through animation and, at the same time, push the art of animation forward.”

So there’s Anakin in the image above, with the new character of Ahsoka, who is his Jedi apprentice. I fear a bad ending for that character!

Obi-Wan, Yoda, Padme, Darth Sidious, Count Dooku are just some of the already established characters who will appear in the show, along with many new characters. The only returning actors from the series to voice their characters are Anthony Daniels (C3PO) and Matthew Wood (General Grevious).

I could never get into the Tartakovsky style animation of The Clone Wars, so I’m happy to see that this a completely different setup and artist mentality.

I’ll see it, no doubt you will see it too… though until Lucas gives up his series to someone else and let’s them go rip with a tale set far away from anything that has gone before then we’ll never truly get excited again for a STAR WARS picture.

source - coming soon, starwars.com

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There’s reports today around the web claiming that George Lucas is planning on bringing the new STAR WARS animated series to the big screen and although no official decision seems to have been made by LucasFilm at this time, something sure does seem to be brewing.

And after all it’s not really that hard to believe is it? It’s been nearly three years since his last money-making venture in the franchise and although INDY IV should keep him ticking over for a while, he just can’t give up the ghost on that galaxy far, far away.

The first origin of today’s story appears to be this U.K. action figure site which claims that the first three episodes of Lucas’ upcoming CLONE WARS series will be distributed theatrically in the U.K. around September time, in what will be promoted as a 90 minute film. AICN picked up the story initially and then later in the day received an e-mail stating that the plan for the series is to actually release a film containing four episodes in the U.S. around the time of INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL’S release.

Which is ridiculously bizarre. Lucas would NEVER have two films of his in competition against each other. His two biggest franchises going one on one… don’t think so.

TheForce.Net got in touch with LucasFilm to try and get a confirmation on this and the following is the reply they received…

“I’d like to clarify Hasbro comments this AM about the Clone Wars TV series. We see it as a breakthrough animated television series and are exploring a number of innovative ways to introduce it to the public. No decisions regarding release strategy have been made yet.”

Interesting. Not a denial by any means, simply an avoidance. TheForce asked about a theatrical release strategy and got this response…

“It’s one of the many things being discussed but we have no decisions yet. For us it’s all about finding a creative way to launch a creative TV series.”

Oh yeah, something is definitely in the works right here. CLICK HERE TO READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE AT THEFORCE.NET.