RED LIGHT 'GREENLIGHT'.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

``Project Greenlight's'' cautionary message seems to be: Be careful what you wish for. This ``reality'' series, conceived by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as sort of a more cerebral ``Popstars,'' has given one ``lucky'' aspiring filmmaker the chance to make his movie - and, since this is a reality show, humiliate himself in the process.

Tonight's episode is a real slog - when I was sure (hoping?) it was almost over, only 12 minutes had passed - as it ponderously goes through the entire weeding-out process of the show's competition. Thousands of wanna-bes submitted scripts for a feature film; those were reduced to 250, then 30, then 10, then three. Ultimately, Pete Jones won (he was introduced on ``The Tonight Show'' months ago), for a script disparaged by judges as an ``after-school special.''

(Because a video was part of the submission process, there was grousing among participants - off the record, naturally - that the series' producers were looking for someone telegenic, a complaint borne out by a cursory glimpse at the 10 finalists. Jones, however, was perhaps the most average-looking of the bunch. Producer Chris Moore, who worked with Affleck and Damon on ``Good Will Hunting,'' soon concedes however that Jones' aw-shucks, middle-America sensibility that won over the judges was a bit of an act.)

A couple of naval-gazing episodes follow, expending a little too much time on media hype (as if to convince us that this show's really worth watching) and the torturous budgeting and casting processes: Miramax exec Jon Gordon tries to weasel out of presenting information for the cameras. Then, ``Project Greenlight'' becomes a sort of electronic press kit, the sort of behind-the-scenes puffery in which everyone explains how working with everyone else was such a joy - Aidan Quinn is quite the professional, Bonnie Hunt is a life-saver, Kevin Pollak leavens the mood. Except for one key difference: Everything goes wrong.

Having seen seven of the series' episodes, it seems quite possible that the production will ultimately fall apart, as Jones - who repeatedly threatens to cry, and his bewildered producing partners, who get numerous tongue-lashings from Moore - make a number of budget-busting gaffes in front of decidedly unsympathetic Miramax executives. If anything, the series will be instructive for future wanna-bes on what not to do. (One wonders if the beer company that sprang cash for shamelessly copious product placement will have second thoughts.)

In tonight's episode, Affleck spouts: ``It may be a grand catastrophe and a terrible failure - that's part of what's kind of exciting about it.'' More to the point, Moore grouses about one of the entries, ``I'm not a fan of movies about the movie business.'' Which is ``Project Greenlight's'' greatest problem: It's only going to appeal to hard-core movie geeks and aspirants, which is to say, it'll play like gangbusters here in Los Angeles, where viewers will chortle with schadenfreude at Jones' predicaments and store away mental notes. The rest of the country, however, will likely shrug.

``PROJECT GREENLIGHT''

What: The making of a low-budget movie that arose out of an online competition.

The stars: Pete Jones, Chris Moore, Jon Gordon, Aidan Quinn, Pat Peach, Jeff Ballis, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon.

Where: HBO.

When: 10 tonight through Dec. 30; 9:30 p.m. Sundays beginning Jan. 6

Our rating: Two and one half stars

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

Filmaker Pete Jones, second from right, hangs out with some new buddies: from left, producer Chris Moore and actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.