More than 20 years after Nicolas Cage's Ben Gates made off with the Declaration of Independence, a third National Treasure film is officially in motion. Director Jon Turteltaub broke the news during a live recording of the National Treasure Hunt podcast in Philadelphia on Friday, revealing that Disney has approved a script for the long-awaited sequel.
"I was thinking about mentioning this tonight, I'll say it tonight," Turteltaub told the audience. "It's happening. You're the first people I have said this out loud to."
Turteltaub, who directed both National Treasure (2004) and its 2007 follow-up, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, cautioned that a green light in Hollywood doesn't guarantee a finished film. "It's finally real. Now, it's 'Hollywood real,' meaning things can happen. Nic gets hit by a bus, there's no National Treasure. If I get hit by a bus, there's probably a National Treasure. Welcome to Hollywood, that's Hollywood," he said.
He added that the project has cleared a key hurdle after a long search for the right script. "Finally have a script that I like," he said, noting that Disney has responded with similar enthusiasm, telling him it "sounds like a movie we can make."
The original National Treasure followed historian Ben Gates, played by Cage, as he raced to steal the Declaration of Independence in pursuit of a map leading to a legendary hidden treasure, all while trying to outmaneuver his duplicitous former colleague Ian, portrayed by Sean Bean. The two films in the franchise have grossed more than $800 million worldwide.
The National Treasure universe expanded further in 2022 with the Disney+ spin-off series National Treasure: Edge of History, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Photo: Peter Kudlacz, CC BY 2.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
