Jon Turteltaub confirmed that National Treasure 3 was “finally real” and moving forward, almost two decades after Nicolas Cage last played treasure hunter Benjamin Gates on the big screen.
Turteltaub, who directed both the previous films, made the announcement during a recording of the National Treasure Hunt podcast in Philadelphia on Friday, telling the audience that they were the first people to hear him say it publicly. “It’s happening,” Turteltaub said. “You’re the first people I have said this out loud to. I have not said anything before this, but you deserve to have the scoop.”
“It’s finally real,” he said. “Now, it’s ‘Hollywood real’, meaning things could happen. Nic gets hit by a bus, there’s no National Treasure 3. If I get hit by a bus, there’s probably a National Treasure 3. Welcome to Hollywood.”
Turteltaub said the team had “finally” produced a script he liked and that Disney had responded that it “sounds like a movie we can make”.
He hoped to get back the original cast “to whatever extent we can”, including Cage.
The Independent has contacted representatives for Disney and Cage for comment.
National Treasure, released in 2004, stars Cage as historian and treasure hunter Benjamin Gates, who discovers that the Declaration of Independence contains a hidden clue to a legendary treasure and sets out to steal the document before his rival can reach it. Diane Kruger plays archivist Abigail Chase, while Justin Bartha stars as Gates’s friend Riley Poole, with Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, and Sean Bean also in the cast.
Although the film was a critical failure, with a critics’ score of 47 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, it made $347.5m worldwide on a 100m budget.
The sequel, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, arrived in December 2007, bringing back Cage, Kruger, Bartha, Voight, and Keitel, and adding Helen Mirren and Ed Harris.
The film sees Gates trying to clear his ancestor’s name after a missing page from John Wilkes Booth’s diary appears to implicate them in Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. The search leads Gates to the mysterious Book of Secrets, a supposed collection of classified information held by US presidents.
The sequel reportedly cost $130m to make and took home $459.2m worldwide. However, critics liked it even less, giving it a 35 per cent Rotten Tomatoes score.
The second film introduced one of the franchise’s most persistent unanswered questions: what was it that Gates saw on page 47 of the Book of Secrets and described as “life-altering”?
The franchise briefly returned in 2022 with the Disney+ series National Treasure: Edge of History, starring Lisette Olivera as Jess Valenzuela, a young woman who sets out with her friends to uncover a lost Pan-American treasure while investigating secrets surrounding her family. Catherine Zeta-Jones played Billie Pearce, a billionaire treasure hunter pursuing the same prize, while Bartha and Keitel reprised their film roles as Riley Poole and Peter Sadusky.
The show ran for 10 episodes before Disney+ cancelled it after one season in April 2023.
Can Pirates of the Caribbean 6 save Johnny Depp’s career – or is he damaged goods?
Nick Jonas wanted to star in this hit Disney film but ‘bombed’ the audition
Disney fans remember beloved film after Hayden Panettiere dies a year on from co-star
Andrew Garfield makes honest admission about leaving Hollywood
Ridley Scott responds to Quentin Tarantino’s pick for best film of the century: ‘No!’
Mark Ruffalo hits out at Paramount over ‘appalling’ antisemitism accusation
