national treasure spoke to the hearts andminds of many a young history enthusiast — and action thriller fans everywhere — when ithit theaters in 2004. the box office smash featured nicolas cageas ben gates, an explorer who steals the declaration of independence in his quest to find a hiddentreasure. a sequel, national treasure: book of secrets,was released in 2007 and improved on the first film's box office return. talk about a third film started shortly after,and although rumors have persisted over the years, nothing has come of those stories. unfortunately for fans of the franchise, productionappears to have stalled on the third film.
here's why it's unlikely that disney willever actually release national treasure 3. busy producer famed producer jerry bruckheimer is the manbehind many of your favorite action movie franchises, including beverly hills cop, badboys, and pirates of the caribbean. jerry bruckheimer films was also one of theproduction companies that worked on the national treasure series, but that might be what'sholding up a potential third film. bruckheimer has said that he's still lookingto, quote, "get this thing going" in reference to the third film, but right now his plateis pretty full with his work on long-awaited sequels for some of his other popular franchises.
these films include bad boys for life, a thirdinstallment in the bad boys series. he's also working on a tom cruise-led topgun sequel, titled top gun: maverick, which is slated for a 2019 release. with so many other movies awaiting his attention,bruckheimer likely doesn't have much time to devote to national treasure 3. fact-checking the national treasure films may not be themost historically accurate to ever grace the big screen... "let me guess!
it's the wrong time! it's the wrong place! i'm wrong again!" … but apparently quite a lot of researchstill goes into making them, and that could be part of what's delayed national treasure3 for so long. as cage revealed in 2016, it's been a challengegetting the script "where it needs to be" thanks to the unique constraints of the franchise. he told entertainment weekly, "i do know that those scripts are very difficultto write, because there has to be some credibility
in terms of the facts and fact-checking, becauseit was relying on historical events. and then you have to make it entertaining." "there's thousands of years of world historydown there. and it belongs to the world." jon turteltaub, who directed both films andis attached to the third, also said script issues have been plaguing the film, tellingcollider in 2013, "[it's] so damn hard to write a great historicalmystery based on fact." turtletaub said at the time that he thoughtthey'd be shooting the film within two years, but it appears that getting the script justright has been a longer process than he anticipated.
critical aversion critical success isn't always tied to boxoffice success, and the national treasure franchise is a perfect example of that principlein action. the franchise has even earned a number ofnominations at the golden raspberry awards, honoring the worst hollywood has to offer,including a worst actor nod for cage for book of secrets. "i'm wrong again! wrong about us. wrong about thomas gates.
wrong as you'd like, the queen anne chair." the fact that critics were never on boardwith the franchise could be something that has deterred the studio from ordering anothermovie. the falling critical and box office returnsof other franchises like transformers and pirates of the caribbean hint that reviewsdo matter, and making another film in a franchise that's already earned critics' ire could betoo great a risk. cage's decline the national treasure franchise managed toimprove its grosses from the first film to the second, but nicolas cage has been seeinghis box office returns fall for quite some
time now. aside from his ghost rider franchise, kick-ass,and his voice role in the croods, cage has led a series of commercial flops in recentyears, which could make the studio reluctant to rely on him as a leading man once again. cage has reportedly been taking roles "leftand right" the past decade to help him pay off his debts, which could explain his stringof smaller films. financial need may be enough to get him backto the franchise, but the studio could be leery of signing a star whose box office appealis in question. "i'm like a prickly pear!"
disney's priorities a lot has changed for disney since book ofsecrets hit theaters in 2007. while the studio was never a minor playerin the movie marketplace, their influence has been stepped up significantly in the pastfew years, mostly thanks to major moves in picking up marvel and lucasfilm. since the last national treasure was released,disney gained a lot more franchises to work with, and they're not slowing down. they don't need to go back to a franchisethat's been in limbo for a decade. changing landscape
a solid franchise used to be a guarantee thataudiences would turn out for a movie, but the box office has changed a lot in recentyears. recent franchises that have seen diminishingreturns at the box office include bruckheimer's pirates of the caribbean movies, the transformersfranchise, tom cruise's the mummy and dwayne johnson's baywatch. while there are a few high-profile exceptions,including marvel's continued box office dominance, it's risky to assume national treasure wouldbe one of them, which could be just one more reason disney won't release national treasure3. thanks for watching!
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