Lucas Toiling in Land Far Away

For “Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones” and “Episode III,” now in the works, George Lucas, the ultimate Californian, has worked largely in Australia, far from his home base of Marin County and the American Southwest, where he filmed many scenes of the hugely successful original trilogy.

Lucas hasn’t turned his back on his country. After his breakthrough 1973 “American Graffiti,” he chose English sound stages for “Star Wars,” with location work in Tunisia as well as Death Valley. “The Empire Strikes Back” employs locations in Oregon and the Bay Area’s Marin County and Alcatraz, as well as Tunisia, and “Return of the Jedi” includes scenes in Buttercup Valley in both Arizona and California. But Lucas is following a trend in working in Australia.

Leaving behind Leavesden Studios in England, where he shot much of “Episode I The Phantom Menace,” Lucas made most of “Episode II” at Fox Studios Australia in Sydney, where Baz Luhrmann filmed “Moulin Rouge.” But Luhrmann is an Australia native, and his star, Nicole Kidman, though born in Hawaii, grew up there. The leads in “Attack of the Clones” are American, British and Canadian; the best-known Australian face belongs to Jack Thompson, the longtime star seen briefly as Anakin’s stepfather. New Zealand’s Temuera Morrison has a more important role as Obi-Wan’s foe, Jango Fett.

Americans are traveling to Australia to shoot big pictures with increasing frequency. Two Chicago-born brothers, Andy and Larry Wachowski, chose Sydney as the principal location of “The Matrix” and its two forthcoming sequels, “The Matrix Reloaded” and “The Matrix Revolution.” And, partly because he was married then to Kidman, Tom Cruise elected to shoot most of “Mission: Impossible II” in New South Wales (90 minutes south of Sydney) under the direction of Hong Kong’s John Woo.

It was perhaps only logical that Peter Jackson, a native New Zealander, would celebrate the beauty of his country, Australia’s neighbor, in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

The trend of making big-budget, special effects-laden films in Australia and New Zealand follows an invasion of American films by directors and stars from Down Under. Peter Weir, Bruce Beresford, Fred Schepisi, George Miller and Gillian Armstrong were among the first directors whose early films sent them to Hollywood, followed by Phillip Noyce, Luhrmann, Russell Mulcahy and Simon Wincer.

Miller’s 1979 “Mad Max” and Weir’s 1981 “Gallipoli” helped establish Mel Gibson as an international star. Kidman emerged in Noyce’s suspenseful “Dead Calm.” The biggest star now working in American films who began in his native New Zealand is Russell Crowe, whose career ignited in the U.S. with “L.A. Confidential.”