Third time’s the charm: Movie trilogies rule

When the characters in writer-director Kevin Smith’s romantic comedy “Chasing Amy” mention “the holy trilogy,” they aren’t discussing religion, they’re talking about “Star Wars.” Since the release of “Return of the Jedi” in 1983, fans and Hollywood executives alike have looked to the original three “Star Wars” films as the gold standard for how crowd-pleasing movie sequels should be handled. Rather than tell a series of self-contained stories, this trilogy told a single story across three films.

“ ‘Star Wars’ was different from anything that preceded it,” says Leonard Maltin, film critic and host of the syndicated TV series “Hot Ticket.” “It created a mystique and proved that [serialized filmmaking] could be done.”

Even lowbrow comedy sequels have attempted to elevate their status by casting themselves as part of a trilogy. This summer’s “American Wedding,” a second sequel to 1999’s “American Pie,” was advertised as “the thrilling climax of the ‘American Pie’ saga.”

But it takes more than recurring characters and a serialized story to win fans’ hearts. As the creators of this year’s “The Matrix Revolutions” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” found out, the kind of epic scale filmmaking required to create a “holy trilogy” comes with unique benefits and hazards.

Together with George Lucas’ own “Star Wars” prequel trilogy (which will conclude in 2005), these three-film series have set off a flurry of trilogy developments. New Line Cinema, which released the “Rings” movies, is working on adaptations for Phillip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trio of fantasy novels. Paramount is considering a trilogy based on its upcoming retro sci-fi film “The World of Tomorrow.” And Sony has agreed to let director Len Wiseman turn “Underworld,” his surprise hit pitting werewolves against vampires, into a trilogy, with a prequel and a sequel to come.

“We didn’t jump into this thinking, ‘Let’s go create a trilogy,’ ” says Wiseman. “Once we were throwing ideas around for the first ‘Underworld,’ we realized we had too much story to tell for one movie.”

With the “Rings” films grossing $1.7 billion worldwide and winning six Oscars before the third film was even released, other filmmakers may be tempted to plan three-film cycles.

But “Rings” was a special case, as New Line’s executive vice president and head of production, Mark Ordesky, points out. “It requires a very special group of people working a very special way to commit 18 months to film all three movies at the same time.”

“ ‘Rings’ is in a category all by itself,” says Maltin. “It wasn’t made the way any other trilogy or series of sequels has been made in the history of movies. It’s been a benefit to the quality of the finished product, and people have responded in kind.” And the “Rings” films had the added benefit of coming from J.R.R. Tolkien’s immensely popular novels, with the three-film structure already mapped out.

“The worst thing you can do is inorganically try to create a trilogy when one doesn’t exist,” cautions Ordesky.

“These films are driven by fans,” says Maltin. “They have a built-in audience because they create a fan base.” Greg Dean Schmitz, who writes Greg’s Previews for Yahoo! Movies, cites several instances in which director Peter Jackson altered the “Rings” story from the books but succeeded because the changes were made with a fan’s love of the material.

“Jackson showed that a fan can succeed as a creator,” Schmitz says.

Schmitz says fans are rarely given control of a film franchise, although they often have ideas just as creative as the original authors’.

“The difference between creators and fans is that creators sometimes can’t see the forest for the trees,” Schmitz says. “If you create something, you finish it and you’re done. A fan can admire that and add onto it with creative thoughts.”

That’s something the Wachowski brothers have surely thought about since creating the last two parts of their “Matrix” trilogy.

Building off the $456-million worldwide box office success of the original “Matrix” in 1999, Andy and Larry Wachowski were not bound by preexisting material in creating a sequel, so they decided to make it a trilogy, filming two sequels simultaneously in Australia.

Although audience anticipation gave the first sequel, “The Matrix Reloaded,” a $91-million opening weekend, enthusiasm for the film fizzled quickly. Many fans left disappointed, feeling the story had become mundane and did not live up to their expectations. When “The Matrix Revolutions” opened, it grossed $48 million in its domestic opening weekend, slightly more than half the first weekend take of its predecessor.

“The problem with the ‘Matrix’ sequels was they were not faithful to what the fans expected,” Schmitz says. “I got the sense [the Wachowskis] didn’t get to craft the two sequels as carefully and stuck more to the original story they came up with in the early ‘90s. They could have accomplished the story of the sequels in one movie.”

But perhaps planning a second sequel was the smartest thing for the Wachowskis to do. Despite the perception that the two films were a creative disappointment, together they have grossed $417 million domestically and $1.1 billion worldwide; making the three cost roughly $300 million. And although fans had problems with the second movie, many turned out for the third, just to see it end.

“When you are going to wrap up characters’ stories, there’s a big pull there,” says Andrew Hindes of Nielsen EDI Inc., a box office tracking firm. “It creates more desire to get the ending than in a film series where the feeling is, ‘How far can we take this?’ ”

University of Michigan film and video professor Hubert Cohen says that trilogies like “The Matrix” and “The Lord of the Rings” can benefit from the sheer size of their storytelling.

“There’s something about big stories that attracts us,” he says. “It makes us feel we’re seeing something important.” He says that trilogies allow the viewer the time to become immersed in the world seen in the film; something perfectly suited to science fiction and fantasy films, in which the creation of a new world is often essential to the story. Three films allow the world to become familiar without becoming stale.

Filmmakers may study the techniques used in “Lord of the Rings” and the “Matrix” for their own trilogies, but they know fans need to be pleased first.

“You gauge what you think an audience would want from a sequel,” says Wiseman. “How different can you go? How many new characters do you introduce? You don’t want to put people off, but you also don’t want to make the same film over again.”