Star Wars is an epic space franchise conceived by George Lucas. The first film was originally released on May 25, 1977 by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, triggering two immediate sequels released in three-year intervals. The Star Wars franchise has triggered other media including books, television series, video games, and comic books. These supplements to the film trilogies comprise the Star Wars Expanded Universe, and have resulted in significant development of the series' fictional universe. These media kept the franchise going in the interim between the film trilogies. In 2008, Star Wars: The Clone Wars was released to theaters as the first ever worldwide theatrical Star Wars film outside of the main trilogies. It was the franchise's first animated film, and was intended as an introduction to the Expanded Universe series of the same name.
