National Treasure director Jon Turteltaub announced that a third film in the Nicolas Cage adventure franchise is officially in the works: “It’s happening.”
Grab your treasure-hunting gear—Benjamin Gates is coming back.
Over two decades after National Treasure was released, the director of the Disney adventure franchise starring Nicolas Cage revealed a third installment is “finally” in development.
“I was thinking about mentioning this tonight, I’ll say it tonight,” director Jon Turteltaub told the crowd during a live recording of the National Treasure Hunt podcast on Aug. 21. “It’s happening. You’re the first people I have said this out loud to.”
While Turteltaub—who directed the 2004 film along with the 2007 sequel National Treasure: Book of Secrets—confirmed the exciting news, he pointed out that the status of projects in the industry can change quickly.
“Now, it’s ‘Hollywood real,’ meaning things can happen,” he explained. “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.”
According to Turteltaub, a script for the third film has not only been written, but has also been approved by himself and Disney, saying the studio told him it “sounds like a movie we can make.”
As for who else is on board? Jerry Bruckheimer, with the treasure podcast noting on Instagram that the film producer has given the National Treasure 3 script his “blessing.”
The first National Treasure followed historian Ben Gates, along with his friends Dr. Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger) and Riley Poole (Justin Bartha), who embarked on a quest to steal the Declaration of Independence to find a map to a lost Freemason treasure. The trio—in addition to OG stars Jon Voight and Harvey Keitel—returned for the sequel.
But in the nearly two decades since Book of Secrets was released, it seems that a potential third installment has been in development limbo.
And while fans got to briefly return to the world of the franchise in the short-lived 2022 Disney+ series National Treasure: Edge of History, it only further fueled the hope for a third film. After all, the show—which featured cameos from Bartha and Keitel—even referenced a cliffhanger at the end of the second movie, in which the President of the United States (Bruce Greenwood) tells Ben about a mysterious page 47 in the titular Book of Secrets.
At the time, Bruckheimer—who produced both films and the spinoff series—gave a positive update on the status of National Treasure 3.
"We said we'd like to make another National Treasure and they said, ‘Sure, let's come up with a new cast,'" he told E! News in a 2022 interview. "At the same time, we were developing National Treasure for the theaters with Nicolas Cage—which we still are. So, that's ongoing."
Until we learn more about National Treasure 3, read on to see the movies you can check out in theaters this year…
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