By Michael Fleming

TED'S TRIFECTA

Ted Turner is certainly staked in the Civil War. He is spending more than $50 million of his own money to finance the currently shooting ``Gods and Generals,'' and he has optioned ``The Last Full Measure'' with an eye toward making another feature that wraps up a trilogy that began with ``Gettysburg.''

That film, which reached its biggest audience through Turner's TV networks, was written and directed by Ron Maxwell, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning Michael Shaara historical novel ``The Killer Angels.''

Maxwell got Shaara's son Jeff to continue the series after his father died with ``Gods and Generals'' and then with ``The Last Full Measure,'' which Jeff wrote. Maxwell wrote and directed the prequel and will do the same for the third film.

Turner appeared in ``Gettysburg'' as confederate Col. Waller Tazwell Patton, where he was killed on the battlefield.

But he'll be back in uniform this weekend to play Patton again in the prequel. There are 157 speaking roles in the new film, which will be distributed by Warner Bros. and stars Robert Duvall as Gen. Robert E. Lee, Stephen Lang as Gen. Stonewall Jackson, and Jeff Daniels back as Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, with Mira Sorvino coming aboard to play his wife.

All of them will be approached to continue with the third film. ``Many of the characters follow through to 'The Full Measure,' which takes us to the surrender at Appomatox, and the mood on the set is that everybody would like to return,'' said Maxwell, who'll shepherd the project through Antietam Filmworks, the company he formed with author Jeff Shaara.

Personally bankrolling a $50 million film is a perilous undertaking, but then again, Turner's the same guy who defied naysayers by buying the MGM/UA library and then starting CNN, which Robert Wussler, president of Ted Turner Pictures, co-founded.

``It's actually a higher amount if you include the cost of distribution through Warner Bros., and it's true that not many people would do this, but Ted has always put his money where his mouth is,'' Wussler said. ``That includes endowing $350 million a year to other charitable causes.''

Turner is approaching his Civil War features as a business venture and sees a built-in audience that will expand beyond ``Gettysburg,'' a $15 million film that turned a profit through extensive TV airings and a limited theatrical release.

``We think this can do extremely well at the box office,'' Wussler said. ``We are three quarters of the way home with 'Gods and Generals,' we are financing a major PBS documentary on weapons of mass destruction, and we hope to proceed with 'The Last Full Measure' if it is justified by the performance of this movie when it comes out next December.''

Reuters/Variety REUTERS