"National Treasure 3" Gets Exciting Update

There are dozens of beloved Disney live-action franchises, but few have captured the hearts of audiences quite like National Treasure.

The action-adventure films starring Nicolas Cage thrilled moviegoers in the mid-2000s, but despite the strong box office of the last treasure hunt, 2007’s "Book of Secrets", a third installment was never made. 

It looked like for over a decade that the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced series would stay buried, but recently there have been a few exciting clues to a possible third film. 

Now, screenwriter Ted Elliot, who worked on the previous National Treasure installments, has just given National Treasure 3's biggest update yet. 

In a recent interview on the National Treasure Hunt podcast, Elliot spoke about the progress the sequel was making. 

He is done with National Treasure 3’s first draft, which “nobody has gotten it yet”. The scriptwriter would then go into what fans could expect from the sequel, saying, “Riley has changed more [than anybody else.] If you just look at the two points that are established for him in the first and second movies. In the first one, he is the uninformed audience… That’s the role he plays,”. 

Elliot continued: “He’s the guy who says, ‘What are you talking about there?’ In the second one he’s written a book about cryptohistory. And he’s right! He knows something Ben didn’t know about history. I just have to think that that’s continued. It becomes more difficult to do the history exposition because … There are things [Riley] can know now. In terms of writing the third movie, there is, I think, a change to Ben and Riley’s inner relationship that I think both actors will really enjoy”.

Riley Pool was played by the lovable Justin Bartha in both films. The actor most recently reprised his iconic role in the short-lived Disney+ series "National Treasure: Edge of History" in 2022. 

The series focused on a core new group of young treasure hunters led by Lisette Olivera and Jake Austin Walker. 

It was connected to the larger universe, with Bartha, Harvey Keitel’s Agent Sudusky and Armando Riesco’s Agent Hendricks being key figures in the adventure. 

The series never got a second season, but Elliot hinted that it won’t be forgotten to time. “Agent Sudusky is dead. I’m treating the TV series as canon … I’m trying to do something different with the FBI than was done in the previous two movies,” He said."There's still the pursuers, there’s still the force for law and order, but just the way they operate I’m trying to do something just a little bit different." 

In the series, it was revealed that Hendricks was secretly the evil “Salazar” and killed Sudusky. Further corruption in the FBI may be what he’s referring to.

Since "National Treasure 3" is still in the early stages of development, it is currently unknown what treasure Cage’s Ben Gates and his team will hunt down next. but Elliot teased in the interview that Cage, Bartha and Diane Kruger were being looked at to return, despite Cage’s previous comments earlier this year. 

The trio might not be the only familiar faces coming back either, as the screenwriter has suggested other franchise favorites could make appearances. This could mean anyone starting from Sean Bean to Helen Mirren, but it may also include some Edge of History alums like Olivera. The series did tease a team up with Cage throughout its only season.