The National Board of Review (NBR) is to present GeorgeLucas with a special award in honour of his 'visionary cinematicachievements', the film body announced today (Nov 25).

The presentation will take place at the annual awards galaon Jan 14, 2003, at Tavern on the Green in New York. A full list of theNBR's honourees and the top 10 English-language pictures and top fiveforeign language pictures will be released on Dec 4.

Lucas, who is also being honouredthis year by the Producers Guild Of America, is in preparation for the third ofhis Star Wars prequels. The second Attack Of The Clones grossed $303.6m in theUS alone.