“National Treasure 3” could soon be coming to a theater near you.
Franchise director Jon Turteltaub revealed in a live taping of the “National Treasure Hunt” podcast on Friday that a script is in the works with Disney’s endorsement and original stars including Nicolas Cage are in talks to return.
“I was thinking about mentioning this tonight, I’ll say it tonight,” Turteltaub teased during the recording in Philadelphia. “It’s happening. You’re the first people I have said this out loud to.”
“It’s finally real,” he continued. “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.”
Of the script and Disney’s endorsement, Turteltaub said the third movie in the American history adventure-thriller series is “finally” in a state that he likes and that the studio said it “sounds like a movie we can make.”
Representatives for Cage and Disney did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
Watch Turteltaub’s remarks below:
Turteltaub directed the first two “National Treasure” films, “National Treasure” in 2004 and “National Treasure: Book of Secrets.” At $347 million and $459 million, respectively, the two films ranks as Cage’s highest-grossing live-action projects ever, only behind his voice work in “The Croods” (2013).
“National Treasure” follows historian Ben Gates (Cage) who steals the Declaration of Independence after discovering that there is a secret map to a long last treasure on its reverse side. In “Book of Secrets,” Gates fights to clear his family’s name after a newly discovered page from treasure hunter Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) races to clear his family name after a newly surfaced page from John Wilkes Booth’s diary implicates his ancestor in President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.
The two films were followed by a spinoff series in 2022 on Disney+, “National Treasure: Edge of History.” That project starred Catherine Zeta-Jones and ran for one season.
