(FORTUNE Magazine) – When Star Wars: The Phantom Menace opens on May 19, it will cap one of the most intensive publicity pushes for any film in history. But, in true Star Wars fashion, the end will also be the beginning--the beginning of the hype for a slew of other movies. For before the phantom can begin its menacing, there will be eight minutes of coming attractions, and those eight minutes are some of the most coveted real estate in the movie business. Assuming the movie makes at least $100 million in the U.S. in its first week, a trailer in front of it would reach 25 million viewers just as summer kicks off. And, Sony Pictures' distribution chief Jeff Blake notes, "these are people who have gone out and bought a ticket and are sitting in a seat, and they're likely to do it again." In other words, a perfect captive audience.

But space is limited: Lucasfilm and the movie's distributor, 20th Century Fox, have requested that only eight minutes of trailers precede The Phantom Menace; theater owners, desperate to get the movie, have little choice but to comply. Under an MPAA agreement with theater owners, film distributors are allowed to attach 2 1/2 minutes of trailers to the films they release, and Fox will be taking up every second of its allotment. That leaves 5 1/2 minutes for the other studios, and the decision about which trailers to use is up to the theater owners.

"We've gotten calls from every studio except MGM," says Edgar Knudson, senior vice president for advertising and publicity at the National Amusements chain. Theater owners select trailers on a nearly screen-by-screen basis, balancing factors like the chain's relationship with studios, the quality of the trailers, and, not insignificantly, whether the theater playing a given trailer will eventually be showing the movie.

The studios, meanwhile, are whittling their trailers down from the usual 2 1/2 minutes to one minute, the better to ensure placement before The Phantom Menace. It isn't easy: Sony's Blake says his marketing department is struggling to find a way to sell its Adam Sandler comedy Big Daddy in 60 seconds. "You don't want to have something on there that's not funny," he says. "With all due respect to time, funny counts." Al Shapiro, president of domestic theatrical distribution for New Line Cinema (owned by Time Warner, FORTUNE's parent), says his studio has had similar problems trimming the trailer for its Austin Powers sequel. "I don't want to name names, but it's a shame that somebody is limiting the trailer time so the other pictures that may be able to take advantage of the exposure may not get on," Shapiro says, adding, "Everybody is pretty annoyed about this."

--Tim Carvell