National Treasure fans rejoice! A third installment of the hit franchise is officially on the way over at Disney!

Its been over a decade since National Treasure: Book of Secrets hit theaters in 2007, but the demand from fans for a National Treasure 3 hasn’t died down much since then.

Now, it looks as though we’re finally going to get that long awaited third installment we’ve been hoping for.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, National Treasure 3 is officially in the works over at Disney.

News of the threequel officially hit the internet on Friday (January 17), where it was also revealed that Bad Boys For Life screenwriter Chris Bremner is officially signed on to pen the script for the third movie.

In addition to Bremner, it was also announced that Jerry Bruckheimer would officially be returning to serve as a producer on the project.

The first National Treasure, which hit theaters in 2004, scored big at the box office raking in a whopping $347 million worldwide. 2007’s follow up, Book of Secrets, outdid its predecessor, grossing $457 million worldwide.

So why did it take Disney so long to give the fans what they clearly wanted? 


There doesn’t seem to be a clear answer to that question, although director Jon Turteltaub (who helmed the first two movies) did shed a bit of light with regards to what might have caused the hold up during an interview he did back in 2018.

Speaking to Collider, Turteltaub revealed that one of issues lay in Disney prioritizing financing other projects in lieu of greenlighting a threequel.

“When National Treasure first got made, there was a lot more money to go around. Everybody got paid nicely. The problem, with getting the third one made isn’t the people who are getting paid saying, ‘I’m not doing it unless you pay me a lot!’ It’s really that Disney feels they have other films they want to make that they think will make them more money,” said Turteltaub at the time.

In the same interview, Turteltaub revealed that a third movie script was also in the works at the time, but that the studio didn’t think it was great enough to keep the project in development.

Looking back, it’s too bad to hear that Disney didn’t feel like taking a gamble on what likely would have been a surefire hit at the box office earlier. At the same time, we’re sure that now fans are just excited to know that National Treasure 3 is officially on the way!

No word yet on whether Turteltaub, or original movie stars Nicolas Cage, Justin Barta, Diane Kruger, and Jon Voight will return to reprise their roles, but we’ll certainly be hoping they’ll jump on board as the project moves further and further into development!