Many of you alerted us to this article at MSNBC:

Two Star Wars fans in Seattle have been living in a 10-foot-by-20-foot tent in the parking lot of a Seattle theater since Jan. 1, waiting for the May 16 opening of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. If they make it to opening day, an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records awaits them for the longest wait in line for a movie. (They?re chronicling their stay here .) Fans in Los Angeles have been waiting since April 4. New York?s Episode II line opened April 28. In all, Star Wars fans have queued up in more than 21 locations in the United States and Europe, putatively to be among the first to buy tickets and view the film.

BUT BEING FIRST to see the movie clearly isn?t what?s at stake for these fans. After all, the average person will be able to see Episode II on May 16 simply by calling Moviefone or showing up at the box office. Granted, some rabid fans are doing it out of sheer ostentatious devotion. But for others, the lines can be sidewalk-borne mini-MBA programs for aspiring film promoters. These people aren?t the simple @$$-sitters of yore. They?re conducting an intensive study in guerrilla advertising and Internet marketing techniques. The bottom line for these fans may very well be the bottom line.

Consider the history of Countingdown.com, the organization that sponsored the watershed of Star Wars lines, the one outside Mann?s theater in Hollywood in 1999 for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Lincoln Gasking, Phillip Nakov, and Tim Doyle created the site after meeting on a Titanic message board, where they cooked up the idea of a film Web site that would cater to fan anticipation of upcoming films. After promoting Titanic on Countingdown.com, they decided to try for a multiweek line-sit for The Phantom Menace. Sponsoring lines in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco, then, they used the Countingdown.com Web site to promote the lines, leak Episode I-related information, and host live Web broadcasts from the Hollywood line.

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