For the first time since 2007, Ben Gates and Abigail Chase are back on screen together. Nicolas Cage and Diane Kruger reunited for Prime Video’s Spider-Noir, hit the press tour side by side, and somehow the obvious question never really landed.
The interviews covered Cage’s son’s name, the superhero roles he turned down, and his Breaking Bad binge. But with the two leads of National Treasure sitting in the same room, the future of National Treasure 3 barely came up.
That’s strange, because everything else right now points to the same thing: audiences still want another one.
The Demand Is Right There — National Treasure Just Cracked Hulu’s Top 5
Disney quietly added both National Treasure movies to Hulu on June 1, and they didn’t just sit there. The original climbed to No. 5 on Hulu’s U.S. movies chart within days, sitting alongside titles a fraction of its age, with the sequel charting close behind.
A nearly 20-year-old adventure movie forcing its way into the top five on name recognition alone isn’t nothing. It’s the clearest sign in years that the audience Jerry Bruckheimer keeps talking about is still very much there.
The movies were never critical darlings. The first National Treasure sits at 47% on Rotten Tomatoes, while Book of Secrets is at 35%. But they delivered where it counted, grossing $347.5 million and $459.2 million worldwide. The Hulu surge says that math still holds. People will still show up for Ben Gates.
A National Treasure Reunion Hiding In Plain Sight
That’s what makes the Spider-Noir press run so odd. In the new series, Cage plays a Depression-era private investigator haunted by the death of his wife, played by Diane Kruger. His National Treasure co-star. Their first on-screen reunion since Book of Secrets, and most of the coverage has filed it away as a fun trivia note instead of the headline it should be.
The timing could not be more loaded. The movies are trending on Hulu. Cage and Kruger are doing interviews together. Screenwriter Ted Elliot has said a first-draft script exists and teased that the next treasure hunt would be “the weirdest ever.” If there was ever a moment to ask these two whether they’d go treasure hunting again, it was this one.
Bruckheimer Keeps Selling National Treasure 3. Cage Hasn’t.
The question matters because the answer is still genuinely unsettled.
Bruckheimer keeps the hope alive. At the Producers Guild Awards, he said National Treasure 3 is “coming along quite well” and that the team is “working on the script.” But Bruckheimer has been saying versions of that for fifteen years. He’s the producer — keeping the brand warm is the job. By his own admission, even the canceled Disney+ series was about keeping National Treasure “in the public eye and the zeitgeist.”
The real key is Cage, and his comments have been far less encouraging. In 2024, he flatly shut it down: “No, there is no National Treasure 3. If you want to find treasure, don’t look at Disney, okay? It’s not there.” He softened a bit in 2025, admitting there had been “more chatter about it than normal.” But that’s still not a yes.
That’s the whole tension. Bruckheimer keeps promising progress, while Cage — the one person this movie actually needs — has never given fans the answer they want.
The Verdict: The Easiest Scoop Of The Tour Walked Out The Door
Cage just spent two weeks promoting a project that literally reunites him with Diane Kruger, with both National Treasure films back in Hulu’s top tier and a script reportedly sitting in a drawer.
Nostalgia sequels are dragging far weaker properties back to the screen on a fraction of that momentum. Every external sign points the same direction: the demand is real, the reunion happened, and the franchise still has value.
The only missing piece is the one that’s always been missing: Cage saying yes.
And with the man himself in front of a camera for two straight weeks, sitting beside his old co-star, nobody got it out of him? The most valuable quote in entertainment right now was within arm’s reach, and the press let it walk out of the room.
So until someone actually asks — and gets an answer — treat every “coming along” update for exactly what it is. National Treasure 3 is still a maybe. The demand has never been the problem. The yes has.
For the full development timeline, see our National Treasure 3 status breakdown. For Bruckheimer’s earlier comments, here’s our fall 2025 update on the sequel.
