Jonesing for Indy

When Indiana Jones swings on screen with his signature bullwhip and fedora for the first time in 19 years tonight at the Edwards Big Newport theater, it will be like the return of a long lost friend for superfan Ralph Perez.

“I want to experience it with people who are as excited as I am, up on the big screen as it was meant to be,” Perez said.

Perez and about 10 other die-hard Indy fans have been camped out in front of Edwards Big Newport since Friday awaiting the first screening of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” at midnight tonight. With its 40-by-80-foot screen, Edwards Big Newport was one of the last large-screen theaters to be built in Southern California. Film buffs flocked to the movie house in years past for the premieres of the last three “Star Wars” films.

Perez, a YMCA director from San Diego, is using his vacation time to camp out in front of the theater with his collection of Indiana Jones action figures and other film memorabilia.

The fans braved temperatures that threatened to boil into the 90s as they camped out in front of the theater over the weekend. Menacing storm clouds hung over the theater Tuesday. Organizers of the campout expect all 1,100 seats to be sold out tonight for the midnight screening of “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”

Much has changed since Perez camped out in front of the theater awaiting the premieres of the Star Wars films beginning in the 1970s — and later for “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.”

Back in the day, fans would scrounge up large cardboard boxes from trash bins the night before a film debut and sit and wait, he said.

Pup tents instead of cardboard boxes line the side of the road outside the Big Newport today and fans show up days in advance to watch film screenings projected on the side of the building in their pajamas and mingle with other film devotees.

Fans will gather to watch the independent documentary “Indyfans and the Quest for Fortune and Glory” outside the Big Newport at 9 tonight.

The documentary, which examines the legacy of the Indiana Jones film franchise and its die-hard fans, was an Official Selection at this year’s Newport Beach Film Festival. Twenty-five-year-old filmmaker Brandon Kleya, who directed and edited the documentary, is camped out in front of the Big Newport with the rest of the fans.

“I thought if somebody is going to make a film about Indy fans, it’s got to be done right,” Kleya, 25, said, wearing a T-shirt for the fictional Marshall College, where archaeologist Jones teaches. “We started out with a bunch of friends and shaky, hand-held cameras, and by the time we finished, we had professional lighting and the whole works.”

What hasn’t changed since the openings of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” is the camaraderie between fans, said Indiana Jones aficionado Randy Whitaker, a Silverado Canyon resident who works in construction.

“What you get when you camp out is the total experience,” said Whitaker, who also took time off from work to camp out in front of the Big Newport. “This is my Super Bowl or like a giant concert — It’s Geekfest 2008.”

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK

OPENING WEEKEND: $8,305,823, June 14, 1981

MEMORABLE QUOTE: Marion: You’re not the man I knew 10 years ago.

Indiana: It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage.

THE TEMPLE OF DOOM

OPENING WEEKEND: $33,936,113, May 28, 1984

MEMORABLE QUOTE: Indiana: Short Round, step on it.

Short Round: Okey dokey, Dr. Jones. Hold on to your potatoes!

Willie: For crying out loud, there’s a *kid* driving the car!

THE LAST CRUSADE

OPENING WEEKEND: $29,400,000, May 24, 1989

MEMORABLE QUOTE: Professor Henry Jones: Those people are trying to kill us.

Indiana: I know, Dad.

Professor Henry Jones: It’s a new experience for me.

Indiana: It happens to me all the time.

BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at brianna.bailey@latimes.com.