George Lucas began writing the script for Star Wars: Episode II , Attack of the Clones in March 2000. He completed a rough draft by June 2000 and finished the final script only three days before filming commenced.
Principal photography ran from the 26th of June 2000 to the 20th of September 2000 at Fox Studios Australia in Sydney. Additional location shoots took place in Tunisia, Italy, Spain, China, London, Vancouver, and San Diego.
Hayden Christensen won the role of Anakin Skywalker after auditioning as an unknown actor. The film involved a large search that included many established names such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Paul Walker before Christensen was cast.
The movie pioneered the use of HDW-F900 cameras developed by Sony and Panavision. This made it one of the first feature films shot entirely on a high-definition digital 24-frame system.
Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 62% approval rating based on 322 reviews while Metacritic awarded it a weighted average score of 54 out of 100. The Academy nominated Rob Coleman, Pablo Helman, John Knoll, and Ben Snow for Best Visual Effects at the 2003 ceremony but the Golden Raspberry Awards nominated it for seven categories including Worst Picture.