Trilogy Vs. Epic!

Hi everybody!
During the Labor Day weekend my intention was to thresh out the WONDER WOMAN screenplays, but then arrived at the conclusion that three movies were necessary to house my notations. This threw the entire process into a fundamental re-thinking and prevented me from simply banging out my notes and pulling together the various narrative threads.
I am not working from a pre-existing narrative such as LORD OF THE RINGS, which is a matter of picking and choosing from a plethora of incidents. Nor am I working from a series of self-contained narratives such as the series of Jason Bourne books by Robert Ludlum.
Speaking of BOURNE, the first Matt Damon film was actually a remake and reimagining of an earlier movie adaptation which found its' success upon the DVD release, not from the initial theatrical release. Having unexpectantly found its' audience, the second BOURNE movie immeasurably benefitted from the addition of Joan Allen to the cast. The third BOURNE movie; allowing for his amnesia to clear; provided an emotional completion to the structural mysteries which had driven the first two movies. The backwards logic of telling the BOURNE stories this way made for an unusually-effective movie trilogy.
There is no way to duplicate or to apply the flashback storytelling of BOURNE to the WONDER WOMAN project. Likewise, how the GODFATHER movies began in the middle of the story in the first movie then bookended the beginning and the end in the second movie is equally impossible. These were not simply editing tricks like those as employed in PULP FICTION; these were production decisions directly resulting from successful initial movies which allowed for staging an unexpected sequel or sequels.
With LORD OF THE RINGS, Peter Jackson had a much-beloved epic to cherry-pick from which more-than-justified its' imposing length of 3 movies. The wealth of unused footage on the DVD releases testifies to this. There is no way WONDER WOMAN can match that level of audience loyalty.
I am more mindful of the success of long-form narratives, which are easier to notate in TV than it is in movies.
For example, the freshman season of Steven Bochco's MURDER ONE is a great example of a missed opportunity. Bochco had made his bones on COLUMBO, so he knew how to wrap up a mystery. Then Bochco had created HILL ST. BLUES, so he knew how to elicit fine performances. Then Bochco had created NYPD BLUE, so he knew his way around the courtroom. By using an entire season of TV to prosecute one high-profile murder case, Bochco audaciously attempted to unravel a murder case of such complication that no audience could have possibly guessed who did the crime; which was essentially turning the delight of COLUMBO on its' head. But TV is about compression; not expansion; so when the murderer was finally revealed on MURDER ONE they were so completely out of left field that it might as well have been committed by the butler. Had MURDER ONE been half its' length it might have worked.
Which brings us to the classic miniseries RICH MAN, POOR MAN. During the production, nobody realized that although Peter Strauss was the crush-ready WASP with feet of clay, it would be rough-hewn Nick Nolte as the n'er-do-well brother with the heart of gold who would capture the audience's heart. So when Nolte perished at the end of the show, it provided an emotional impact that no one had anticipated: it actually elevated it from trashy soap opera to legitimate drama. When the producers belatedly realized that they had just killed off their meal ticket, they tried to hire Nolte back as his own son in the sequel, but Nolte chose to pursue a movie career, instead, which; after a shaky start in THE DEEP; proved to be the better choice.
Which all goes to say that altering the WONDER WOMAN project from a two-parter to a trilogy requires a retrenching of preparation to avoid the innumberable errors that have plagued earlier productions.
The skulls and bones of failed sequels have been the bane of Hollywood since the glorious exception of GODFATHER II, and we would be foolish to charge in with less than three fully-articulated narratives before we commit any resources to the WONDER WOMAN project. Only the blood simple fables of HALLOWEEN, of FRIDAY the 13th, of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, of SAW, of HOSTEL, spawn endless sequels that manage to charm generations of moviegoers.
When we ask moviegoers to spend $10, buy a tub of popcorn and a toot of Coca-Cola, and commit their cubicle-tortured behinds to two hours of sparkling entertainment in a darkened room with a hundred complete strangers, we'd better be built to boogie.
Nobody boogies better than WONDER WOMAN, and we will make sure that the WONDER WOMAN project boogies three separate times without missing an Amazonian beat!
The WONDER WOMAN project ain't beanbag!
Talk to you soon, be good!
Brad