LOS ANGELES, MAY 17: It was hardly the most likely romance, but when Star Wars teamed up with Shakespeare for a mere nine minutes it turned out to be a marriage made in heaven - or at least in a galaxy far, far away.George Lucas in Love," a short film parodying the Star Wars director's student days juxtaposed with a retake on Oscar-winning Shakespeare in Love, has become a surprise internet hit.The movie, directed and produced by two Los Angeles film students seeking a big break, outsold the video of Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace when it became available on video for the first time last week in an exclusive deal with online retailer Amazon.com.Despite the lack of advertising and never having been shown in movie theatres, more than 1,500 copies of the affectionate nine-minute spoof were pre-ordered in its first 36 hours on sale at Amazon.com. And on Friday the movie was Amazon.com's third best-selling video title, beating off challenges from its 1999 big brother mega-hit Star Wars.The success of the offbeat movie was testament to the emerging power of the internet in the film business and the enthusiasm of its mostly young computer-savvy audience for online entertainment. It is not available in stores.It all started last year as a bid by two recent graduates of the University of Southern California to use their limited resources to grab Hollywood's attention."We had no idea it was going to become any kind of big Star Wars fan cult item. It was absolutely a career move on our part," says George Lucas in Love producer Joseph Levy."It is very difficult to grab the attention of someone in power to help a young filmmaker's career and it is much easier to do so for nine minutes than it is for an hour and a half."Levy and director Joe Nussbaum, both 27, set the action in 1967 with USC film student George Lucas struggling with a script for an agricultural space tragedy while fending off interruptions from a black-clad rival suffering from asthma.But a chance encounter with a female student radical with a distinctive twin-bun hairstyle, who tells him to "write what you know", inspires Lucas to find a winning formula, helped by a score that weaves Elizabethan music themes with stirring John Williams-style symphonic blasts.The movie, using a cast of actor friends and students, cost $ 25,000, was shown at the Toronto Film Festival and won a best short film award at the 2000 US Comedy Arts Festival.
