10 Movie Sequels Stuck In Production Hell

Like Enchanted, National Treasure is a Disney property from before the Mouse House owned literally everything and as a series has probably fallen by the wayside simply because Disney have so many other properties on the go now. I mean, why bother with a knock-off Indiana Jones when you own the real thing, right?

Nevertheless, talk of a third movie in the absurd but enjoyable "Nicolas Cage steals treasures from American history" series has never quite died down. Immediately following 2007's Book Of Secrets (the one where Cage has to clear his ancestors' name of accusations of involvement in the Lincoln assassination) Disney seemed ready to go on a third part.

At the time uber-producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Jon Turteltaub suggested that the team would take their time developing a third film, but they probably didn't imagine that time stretching to well over a decade.

A completed script draft was apparently floating around in the early 2010s, with Cage suggesting that it would see the action shift beyond the borders of the United States, possibly into South America (so, "International Treasure", then?). But by then Disney were unconvinced.

Instead of a third National Treasure, Disney backed Bruckheimer, Turteltaub and Cage to team up on reimagining The Sorcerer's Apprentice. When that bombed, it seems that the studio's enthusiasm for more from that team died down too.

Turteltaub, however, surprisingly scored the biggest hit of his career with 2018's The Meg and, while looking around for his next project, he has been talking up National Treasure 3 once again. He called the script close to convincing Disney of its merits, but it's hard to see a place for it in their already packed schedule.