National Treasure 3 may not have its star after all. Nicolas Cage told a New York Comic Con crowd on Saturday that he never agreed to return as Benjamin Franklin Gates, less than two months after director Jon Turteltaub announced in Philadelphia that the sequel was happening with Cage on board.
The subject came up during a Saturday morning spotlight panel covering his career. “Like Jonathan Turteltaub, he gets a microphone in his hand and he goes to Philadelphia and says, ‘We’re doing National Treasure 3, and Nic’s coming,'” he said, as The Hollywood Reporter recounted. “I’m like, ‘No, I didn’t sign up for that. You got to get these microphones out of these directors’ hands.'”
He did not close the door. “We’ll see if I want to get together with it,” Cage added, before joking that the one National Treasure he would make is a story where Ben Gates goes after the Epstein files.
What Turteltaub Said In August
Turteltaub, who directed both films, made his announcement in August during a live taping of the National Treasure Hunt podcast at Philadelphia’s Independence Visitor Center, part of the city’s first National Treasure Weekend. He told the crowd the third film was finally real, that there was a script both he and Disney liked, and that Cage was coming back.
Even then he hedged, calling it Hollywood real, the kind of real that means a project is moving without being locked. Disney has not announced the film or given it a release date.
Cage Has Said No Before
Fans waiting on this sequel have heard Cage wave it off before. In a March 2024 interview he said flatly that there was no National Treasure 3. By May 2025 he had softened, saying only that there had been more chatter about it than usual. Saturday’s answer lands somewhere in between: not signed, but not ruling it out.
It was not his only blunt line about a Disney franchise lately. Cage recently said the MCU is becoming a well-funded and glorified WWE.
Disney did try the franchise without him. National Treasure: Edge of History ran for one season on Disney+ with Justin Bartha and Harvey Keitel returning in their old roles, but no Cage, and it was canceled after that season.
Where That Leaves The Sequel
Producer Jerry Bruckheimer has been talking up a third film for years, and he confirmed in 2024 that Ted Elliott, a writer on several Pirates of the Caribbean films, was working on the script. None of that has turned into a production start, a release window or a confirmed cast.
The first film opened in 2004 and National Treasure: Book of Secrets followed in 2007. Until Disney says otherwise, the only firm answer on a third is the one Cage gave on Saturday: he has not signed on.
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