BANGOR – Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the nation is ready for your close-up.

A century and a half after galloping into Civil War legend, the Brewer-born commander of the 20th Maine Regiment is grabbing top billing in a Hollywood movie opening today in a thousand theaters nationwide.

Hoyts Bangor Cinema 10 has scheduled daily showings of the epic, “Gods and Generals” (running time: 3 hours, 55 minutes, including intermission), that was produced by Ted Turner and directed by Ronald Maxwell, the same team responsible for 1993’s “Gettysburg,” based on the late Michael Shaara’s acclaimed novel “The Killer Angels.”

“Gods and Generals,” inspired by the novel by Shaara’s son, Jeffrey, is billed as a “prequel” to “Gettysburg,” the first in a battlefield trilogy, since it chronicles the war years before the epic 1863 battle. New characters introduced include Fanny Chamberlain, played by Mira Sorvino, and John Wilkes Booth, portrayed by Chris Conner.

Jeff Daniels reprises his role of Col. Chamberlain, shown lecturing at Bowdoin College before his battlefield exploits; C. Thomas Howell returns as Joshua’s kid brother, Tom. Stephen Lang, a standout in “Gettysburg” as the Confederate pariah, Gen. George Pickett, pulls on the boots of the godlike “Stonewall” Jackson.

The casting of Robert Duvall as Robert E. Lee may be the movie’s most welcome change. Civil War historians Brian Higgins of Brewer and Paul Smith, president of the Company B, 20th Maine historical group, winced while watching the pint-sized Martin Sheen sporting fake white whiskers in “Gettysburg.” The real Confederate general stood nearly 6 feet tall.

Smith and Higgins plan to watch “Gods and Generals” to spot familiar faces. Smith and fellow 20th Maine volunteers helped re-enact battles in Antietam, Md., in 1997 and Manassas, Va., in 2001 while director Maxwell’s cameras rolled. Higgins hopes for a more authentic Yankee dialect. Daniels’ fumbling of “Bang-ga” for “Bangor” in the first movie made audiences gag.

Despite initially sour reviews (one critic roasted the movie as “turgid, textureless and endless”), Bangor theatergoers might thank the Hoyts chain for screening the movie here at all. In 1993, under pressure from author Stephen King and others, Hoyts, which hadn’t planned to show the film in Bangor, finally scheduled “Gettysburg” locally for appreciative audiences.