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NEW YORK - Most Wes Anderson fans don't see his movies just once. In fact, they tend to migrate back to the theatre again and again and sometimes within the same week. Like Trekkies or Star Wars-heads, there is a special breed of Anderson-enjoyers out there who can quote all the lines, and probably know more about Anderson than the director knows about himself.

Last December, devoted fans waited anxiously for the release of Rushmore (a very un-Disney Disney film), his most recent directorial effort. (Anderson's first movie, Bottle Rocket, came out in '96.) When Rushmore hit the theatres early this year, it was clear that Anderson, along with co-writer Owen Wilson, had succeeded in handing over an instant cult classic.

Rushmore tells the tale of 15-year-old Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman), a self-absorbed wunderkind who is in love with two things: the prep school he attends, Rushmore Academy, and a first grade teacher named Miss Cross (Olivia Williams). While Max's extracurricular prowess thrives (he is a member or founder of every club from the beekeepers to the Flying Piper Cubs), he is failing out of Rushmore. At the story's center is the friendship between Max and local industrial tycoon, Herman Blume (Bill Murray), who initially helps Max to win the love of Miss Cross before trying his own hand at earning her affection.

In the months following Rushmore's release, Web pages proliferated with Anderson fanatics arguing every nuance of his two films. Meanwhile, a cult following was also starting to develop among ad folks. For instance, the movie was so well received by the people at Wieden & Kennedy, New York, that creative director Stacy Wall issued a Rushmore trivia quiz to all Wieden employees.

Although Anderson has been represented for commercials by bicoastal The Industry for a year and a half, he has yet to direct any spots. According to The Industry executive producer Lizzie Schwartz, Anderson has been bombarded with phone calls from numerous agencies wanting to book the director for commercials, since Rushmore became a hit.

Ironically, it wasn't an agency that finally nabbed him, but rather MTV's senior VP of marketing and on-air promotions Allan Broce. "I had seen Rushmore seven times and a friend of mine (Wall) had told me that Wes was doing commercials so I contacted Gary Rose to see what we could do," said Broce. With the upcoming MTV Movie Awards, Broce came up with the idea to resurrect The Max Fischer Players, a group of Rushmore students cum amateur actors who stage Max's original plays, including a hilarious version of the '73 drama Serpico, to promote some MTV-nominated films.

Choosing three films from a list, Anderson wrote scripts for one-minute interpretations of Armageddon, Out of Sight and The Truman Show while reassembling all the original Max Fischer Players that appear in Rushmore for the promos. Everything was done with the same Rushmore-esque style and was appropriately shot on location at the Caldwell Elementary School in McKinney, Texas. "It was fun to get the cast back together, but it was not at all like making the movie," related Anderson.

To familiarize people who had not seen Rushmore, MTV decided to have Schwartzman do a :45 piece where Max introduces The Max Fischer Players and explains to the audience that the executives of MTV approached him to promote the awards.

"Watching him (Wes) work blew me away because he was trying to do three things at once - create promos, make an unbelievably great high school play and keep the characters from the movie intact," explained Broce, who said he kind of stepped back and let Anderson have complete creative license. "Rushmore is Wes' baby and I think he trusted me with this because I knew the movie line for line," said Broce.

Now that Anderson has gotten his feet wet with MTV, he is ready for some spot action. In the meantime, he is working on another screenplay with Wilson, but was reluctant to reveal any details.