We may yet still see Nicolas Cage hunting for various riches one more time as National Treasure 3 is still on the table. At the very least, producer Jerry Bruckheimer still wants to make a third installment of the franchise and talks have happened at Disney over the last few years. This news comes directly from Disney CEO Bob Iger, who has offered some hope for those who wish to see another over-the-top treasure hunt.

This news came as part of the Disney annual shareholder meeting, which was held recently in St. Louis, Missouri. At one point, Bob Iger was taking questions from some of those in attendance and National Treasure 3 came up. While he couldn't say much, mostly because it sounds like there isn't much to say about it at present, he revealed that discussions have been taking place since 2016 or so, though no green light has been given. Here's what Iger had to say about it.

"[Jerry Bruckheimer] would like to make a third movie, and I know that discussions about that film have gone on, probably since 2016, with our studio. But I know they have not greenlit such a film."

There are probably a few reasons this project has stalled out. For one, the previous movie, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, was released back in 2007. That's already more than a decade between movies and, anytime there's a gap that big, it gets risky. Then there's the matter of getting the script in order. Nicolas Cage, who headlines the franchises as Benjamin Franklin Gates, previously stated in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that balancing fact checking with entertainment is to blame.

"I haven't really heard anything about that. I do know that those scripts are very difficult to write, because there has to be some credibility in terms of the facts and fact checking, because it was relying on historical events. And then you have to make it entertaining. I know that it's been a challenge to get the script where it needs to be. That's as much as I've heard. But they're still working on it."

The idea that getting the facts right in a movie franchise largely centered on fictionalizing certain elements of history has a level of humor to it. Though, there is a point in balancing stuff based in the real world that actually happened with the fun side of things. But if there's one thing we've learned it's that Disney loves money and there is possibly money to be made here.

National Treasure and its sequel earned a combined $805 million at the global box office. While Disney has a seemingly unending lineup of franchises that can regularly gross as much or more than those movies did, there is no reason something like this couldn't work. For now, National Treasure 3 isn't actually in the works, but it's not totally out of the discussion and that's the key. This was previously reported by The Hollywood Reporter.