National
Treasure movie poster
National Treasure is a 2004 American action-adventure heist film released by
Walt Disney
Pictures. It was written by Jim Kouf and the Wibberleys, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and directed by Jon Turteltaub. It is the first film in the National Treasure franchise and stars Nicolas Cage in the lead role, Harvey Keitel, Jon Voight, Diane Kruger, Sean Bean, Justin Bartha and Christopher Plummer. In the film, Benjamin Franklin Gates, a historian, along with computer expert Riley Poole and archivist Abigail Chase, search for a massive lost Freemason treasure, which includes a map hidden on the back of the United States Declaration of Independence.
National Treasure was released worldwide on November 19, 2004. The film grossed $347 million worldwide and received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the action scenes and performances but criticized the premise and screenplay. A sequel, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, was released in 2007.
At the 2022 D23 Expo, a sequel television series, National Treasure: Edge of History, was announced. It was released on the Disney+ streaming service from December 14, 2022 to February 8, 2023.
PLOT
Benjamin Franklin Gates is an American historian, cryptographer, and
treasure hunter. When Ben was young, his grandfather John told him that, in 1832, Charles Carroll passed on a secret clue to their ancestor of a fabled treasure hidden in America from ancient times to the Knights Templar, Founding Fathers and Freemasons. Carroll's clue leads anyone to the treasure with the phrase "the secret lies with Charlotte". While Ben is convinced by the story, his skeptical father, Patrick, dismisses it as nonsense.
Ben and his friend, computer expert Riley Poole, head an expedition financed by wealthy Ian Howe to find the Charlotte, revealed to be a ship lost in the Arctic. Within the ship, they find a meerschaum pipe, whose engravings reveal the next clue is on the Declaration of Independence. When Ian reveals himself as a crime boss and suggests stealing the Declaration, a fight ensues, and the group splits. Ben and Riley report Ian's plan to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Abigail Chase of the National Archives, but they don't believe them. Ben decides to protect the Declaration by removing it from the Archives' preservation room during a gala event before Ian does. Obtaining Abigail's fingerprints, he successfully obtains the Declaration, but he is spotted by Ian's group just as they break in to steal it. Ben tries to leave via the gift shop but has to pay for the Declaration when the cashier mistakes it for a souvenir copy. Suspecting something amiss, Abigail confronts Ben and takes back the document. Ian promptly kidnaps her, but Ben and Riley rescue Abigail, tricking Ian by leaving behind a souvenir copy of the Declaration. The FBI, led by Agent Sadusky, begins tracking Ben.
Going to Patrick's house, the trio studies the Declaration and discovers a book cipher written in invisible ink. The message refers to Benjamin Franklin's Silence Dogood letters. Patrick formerly owned them but donated them to the Franklin Institute. Paying a schoolboy to view the letters and decipher the code for them, Ben, Riley, and Abigail discover a message pointing to the bell tower of Independence Hall. Pursued by Ian, they find a brick containing a pair of spectacles with multiple colored lenses, which, when used to read the back of the Declaration, reveal a clue pointing to Trinity Church. Ian's associates chase the trio through Philadelphia until the FBI arrests Ben. Abigail and Riley lose the Declaration to Ian, but Abigail convinces Ian to help them rescue Ben in exchange for the next clue. Ian agrees, contacts the FBI, and arranges a meeting at the USS Intrepid, where they help Ben evade the
FBI.
Ian returns the Declaration and asks for the next clue, but when Ben remains coy, Ian reveals he has taken Patrick hostage. They travel to the Trinity Church, where they find an underground passage that appears to lead to a dead end, lit by a lone lantern. Patrick claims it is a reference to the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, pointing Ian to the Old North Church in Boston, a claim which Ben supports. Ian traps the group in the chamber and leaves for Boston, after which Ben and Patrick reveal it was a false clue to get him out of the way. Ben then finds a notch the meerschaum pipe fits into, opening a large chamber containing the treasure, with a staircase to the surface. Ben meets up with Sadusky
- who is actually a Freemason - at ground level to return the Declaration. In exchange for dropping the charges on him and Abigail, Ben wants to donate the treasure to museums worldwide, crediting the Gates family and Riley for the discovery and Ian's arrest in place of his own. On a tip from Ben, the FBI finds Ian in Boston, breaking into the Old North Church, and arrests him on the spot.
Later, Ben and Abigail start a relationship, and Riley is somewhat upset that Ben turned down the 10% finder's fee for the treasure. However, the 1% he did accept has still netted them all significant wealth.
CASTING
- Nicolas Cage as Benjamin Franklin Gates: An American treasure hunter and cryptographer.
-
Hunter Gomez as young Benjamin Gates
- Sean Bean as Ian Howe: An entrepreneur, crime boss and treasure hunter who is a former friend of Benjamin Gates.
Diane Kruger as Dr. Abigail Chase: An archivist at the National Archives who aids Benjamin Gates in treasure hunting.
- Justin Bartha as Riley Poole: A sardonic computer expert and friend of Benjamin Gates.
- Jon Voight as Patrick Henry Gates: A former treasure hunter and the father of Benjamin Gates.
- Harvey Keitel as Agent Peter Sadusky: An FBI Special Agent in pursuit of the stolen Declaration of Independence.
- Christopher Plummer as John Adams Gates: The father of Patrick Gates and the grandfather of Benjamin Gates.
- Deborah Yates as Rebecca
David Dayan Fisher appears as Shaw, Stewart Finlay-McLennan as Powell, Oleg Taktarov as Viktor Shippen, and Stephen Pope as Phil McGregor (Ian's henchmen); Annie Parisse, Mark Pellegrino, Armando Riesco, and Erik King play agents Dawes, Ted Johnson, Hendricks, and Colfax, respectively. Don McManus appears as Dr. Stan Herbert, Arabella Field appears as Abigail's secretary. Sharon Wilkins portrays a butcher. Jason Earles portrays Thomas Gates, and Terrence Currier portrays a young version of Founding Father Charles Carroll.
CAST
- Nicolas Cage as Benjamin Franklin Gates: An American treasure hunter and cryptographer.
-
Hunter Gomez as young Benjamin Gates
- Sean Bean as Ian Howe: An entrepreneur, crime boss and treasure hunter who is a former friend of Benjamin Gates.
- Diane Kruger as Dr. Abigail Chase: An archivist at the National Archives who aids Benjamin Gates in
treasure
hunting.
- Justin Bartha as Riley Poole: A sardonic computer expert and friend of Benjamin Gates.
- Jon Voight as Patrick Henry Gates: A former treasure hunter and the father of Benjamin Gates.
- Harvey Keitel as Agent Peter Sadusky: An FBI Special Agent in pursuit of the stolen
Declaration of
Independence.
- Christopher Plummer as John Adams Gates: The father of Patrick Gates and the grandfather of Benjamin Gates.
- Deborah Yates as Rebecca
David Dayan Fisher appears as Shaw, Stewart Finlay-McLennan as Powell, Oleg Taktarov as Viktor Shippen, and Stephen Pope as Phil McGregor (Ian's henchmen); Annie Parisse, Mark Pellegrino, Armando Riesco, and Erik King play agents Dawes, Ted Johnson, Hendricks, and Colfax, respectively. Don McManus appears as Dr. Stan Herbert, Arabella Field appears as Abigail's secretary. Sharon Wilkins portrays a butcher. Jason Earles portrays Thomas Gates, and Terrence Currier portrays a young version of Founding Father Charles Carroll.
PRODUCTION DEVELOPMENT
By early 1999, it was revealed that Jon Turteltaub was developing National Treasure based upon an idea developed by Oren Aviv and Charles Segars in 1997, with a script by Jim Kouf. By 2001, the project was relocated to
Touchstone
Pictures.
In May 2003, Nicolas Cage was cast as the lead. New drafts were written by nine scribers, including Cormac and Marianne Wibberley, E. Max Frye, and Jon Turteltaub. By October, Sean Bean was cast.
National Treasure was filmed primarily in Los Angeles, Washington,
New
York, Philadelphia and Utah. Most scenes were filmed on location, with the exceptions of the Independence Hall scene, portions of which were filmed at the replica of Independence Hall at Knott's Berry Farm, and the
Arctic scene, which was filmed in Utah.
CRITICS & BOX OFFICE
National Treasure earned $11 million on its opening day in the United States, ahead of
Paramount & Nickelodeon's The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (which earned $9,559,752). It grossed $35,142,554 during its opening weekend, on 4,300 screens at 3,243 theaters, averaging $11,648 per venue. The film had the best opening weekend for a Disney film released in November until it was surpassed by Chicken Little in 2005. It held on to the No. 1 spot for three weekends. In
Japan, National Treasure bested the double-billing MegaMan NT Warrior: Program of Light and Dark and Duel Masters: Curse of the Deathphoenix, grossing $11,666,763 in its first week. The film closed on June 2, 2005, with a domestic gross of $173,008,894 and earning $174,503,424 internationally. Worldwide, National Treasure grossed over $347,512,318, against a budget of $100 million.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 46% based on 179 reviews, and an average rating of 5.30/10. The site's consensus reads, "National Treasure is no treasure, but it's a fun ride for those who can forgive its highly improbable plot." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 39 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.
Roger Ebert gave the film 2/4 stars, calling it "so silly that the Monty Python version could use the same screenplay, line for line." Academic David Bordwell has expressed a liking for the film, placing it in the tradition of 1950s Disney children's adventure movies, and using it as the basis for an essay on scene transitions in classical
Hollywood cinema.
.
NATIONAL TREASURE 2 - BOOK OF SECRETS
National Treasure: Book of Secrets is a 2007 American action-adventure film directed by Jon Turteltaub and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. It is a sequel to the 2004 film National Treasure and is the second film of the National Treasure franchise. The film stars Nicolas Cage in the lead role, Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, Ed Harris, Diane Kruger, Justin Bartha, Bruce Greenwood and Helen Mirren.
The film premiered in New York City on December 13, 2007, and Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures released it in North America on December 21, 2007. Like its predecessor, it received mixed reviews from critics but was a commercial success, grossing $459 million worldwide, becoming the ninth-highest-grossing film of 2007.
PLOT
Five days after the end of the American Civil War, John Wilkes Booth and Michael O'Laughlen, both members of the KGC, approach Thomas Gates to decode a message copied into Booth's diary. Thomas recognizes the message as a Playfair cipher, and translates it while Booth departs for Ford's Theatre to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln. Thomas solves the puzzle, but realizes Booth and O'Laughlen are trying to help the Confederacy, and rips the cipher's pages from the diary to burn them. O'Laughlen shoots Thomas and flees with the one surviving page fragment, and a dying Thomas tells his son Charles the keyword for the cipher.
In the present day, famed treasure hunter Ben Gates tells Thomas' story at a Civilian Heroes conference. Black market dealer Mitch Wilkinson produces the page fragment, with Thomas Gates' name next to those of Mary Surratt and Dr. Samuel Mudd. The public believes Thomas helped kill Lincoln, and Ben and his father Patrick set out to disprove it. Using spectral imaging, Ben discovers traces of the cipher on the diary page, that, when solved using the keyword, points to the smaller Statue of Liberty in Paris. Traveling there, Ben and his friend Riley Poole discover an engraving referencing the Resolute desks. They head to London, reluctantly recruiting Ben's estranged girlfriend, Dr. Abigail Chase, along the way. Ben and Abigail sneak a peek at the Buckingham Palace desk, and obtain a Pre-Columbian carved plank from a secret drawer. Mitch, who had secretly cloned Patrick's cell phone in order to track Ben's whereabouts, pursues the trio, and eventually obtains the wooden plank, but not before Ben manages to photograph it.
Back in America, Patrick reluctantly asks his ex-wife, archaeo-lexicologist Dr. Emily Appleton, for help. She claims the carvings reference the "center of the Earth", but points out that some of the glyphs are partial. Ben and Abigail convince Abigail's new boyfriend, Connor, a White House Curator, to let them see the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Ben discovers that the second plank has been replaced by a stamp of an altered Presidential seal, which Riley identifies as the symbol for a secret shared diary, written by Presidents containing national secrets such as
Watergate, Area 51, and the
JFK
assassination. Ben's FBI friend Agent Peter Sadusky confirms the book's existence but warns that no one can read its contents without consent from the sitting President.
Ben manipulates the President's birthday party to be hosted at Mount Vernon to convince the President to explore a secret tunnel with him. There, Ben activates a secret sliding door, separates the President from the U.S. Secret Service, and asks him about the book, while safely leading the President to freedom at the other end of the tunnel. The President sympathetically warns Ben that his actions, while innocently meant, will be interpreted as attempted kidnapping, and, unless he achieves his goal of finding the treasure, he will be arrested for his actions. He then reveals the book is hidden in a safe at the Library of Congress. Pursued by the FBI, Ben, Abigail, and Riley manage a brief look at the book. They find a photograph of the missing plank and an entry by Calvin Coolidge. He found the plank in 1924, translated it, had it destroyed, and commissioned Gutzon Borglum to carve Mount Rushmore, to hide evidence of a hidden treasure nearby.
After consulting Emily about the glyphs, Ben, Riley, Abigail, and Patrick head to Mount Rushmore. They meet Mitch and Emily there, as Mitch kidnapped her. Mitch already has acquired, memorized, and destroyed the final clue, forcing the group to bring him along. He helps the group find the entrance of a cave full of booby traps. After briefly getting separated, the group finds a pit containing Cíbola, a Native American city of gold. An ancient dam fails, and it becomes clear one of the group must sacrifice themselves in the quickly flooding cave to hold open the door for the others. Ben initially does so, but Mitch takes over when Ben is knocked away, and he begs Ben to give him posthumous credit for finding the treasure.
Ben and the rest return to the surface, where the President prevents Ben from being arrested by claiming Ben saved him from the tunnel's accidental closing. Ben ensures that Mitch receives joint credit for the discovery, and clears Thomas Gates' name by proving that Booth had consulted him about the treasure, not the assassination. Emily and Patrick lead an expedition of Cíbola while Ben rekindles his relationship with Abigail. Riley gets his Ferrari back from the president of the United States.
CAST
- Nicolas Cage as Benjamin Franklin "Ben" Gates, treasure hunter, historian and cryptologist
- Justin Bartha as Riley Poole, computer expert and author, Ben's best friend
- Diane Kruger as Dr. Abigail Chase, Director of Document Conservation at the National Archives, Ben's ex-girlfriend
- Jon Voight as Patrick Henry Gates, Ben's father who is divorced from his wife Emily
- Helen Mirren as Dr. Emily Appleton-Gates, professor of Native American Studies, Ben's mother who is divorced from her husband, Patrick
- Ed Harris as Mitchell "Mitch" Wilkinson, a black market dealer
- Harvey Keitel as FBI Special Agent Peter Sadusky
- Armando Riesco as FBI Special Agent Hendricks
- Alicia Coppola as FBI Special Agent Spellman
- Albert Hall as Dr. Nichols
- Bruce Greenwood as President of the United States
- Ty Burrell as Connor, White House curator, Abigail's new boyfriend.
Randy Travis makes a cameo appearance, performing at the Mount Vernon party. Small supporting parts are played by Michael Maize and Timothy V. Murphy as Mitch's two accomplices Daniel and Seth respectively; Joel Gretsch and Billy Unger as Gates's ancestors Thomas Gates and Charles Carroll Gates; Christian Camargo as John Wilkes Booth; Brent Briscoe as Michael O'Laughlen; and Zachary Gordon as a boy who gets into a heated argument with Gates over a Lincoln conspiracy. In
France, Guillaume Gallienne and Scali Delpeyrat appear (uncredited) as the French policemen. Abraham Lincoln is played by Glenn Beck.
PRODUCTION
It was stated in the first film's commentary that there were no plans for a sequel, but due to the first film's impressive box-office performance (earning $347.5 million worldwide), a sequel was given the go-ahead in 2005.
Many scenes of historic locations were filmed on location, including the scenes at Mount Vernon and Mount Rushmore. The beginning of filming was marked by the performance of a smudging ceremony by Gerard Baker, superintendent of Mount Rushmore and a member of the Three Affiliated Tribes. Filming at Mount Rushmore took longer than initially scheduled, due to inclement weather and the decision to change the setting of additional scenes to the area around Mount Rushmore to take advantage of the Black Hills backdrop. The scene at the beginning of the film in which Riley is signing copies of his book of the Templar Treasure until his Ferrari is confiscated by the IRS took place at the street level Borders Group bookstore of Garfinckel's Department Store.
BOX OFFICE & CRITICS
National Treasure: Book of Secrets grossed $44.8 million in its opening week, placing at #1 at the box office. It remained in first at the box office for two more weeks, grossing $35.7 million and $20.1 million, respectively, until it was dethroned by The Bucket List ($19.4 million).
The film grossed $220 million in North America and $237.4 million in other territories for a total gross of $457.4 million, against a budget of $130 million, making it the ninth-highest-grossing film of 2007, and the highest-grossing film in the series. It took 38 days to outgross the first film ($347.5 million).
On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 36% based on 130 reviews, with an average rating of 4.80/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "A talented cast goes to waste in the improbable National Treasure: Book of Secrets, which is eerily similar to the first
film." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 48 out of 100, based on 26 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.
ZATI
Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars.
British film critic Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian disputed the implication of British support for the Confederate side in the American Civil War.
The film earned two Razzie Award nominations including Worst Actor for Nicolas Cage (also for Ghost Rider and Next) and Worst Supporting Actor for Jon Voight (also for Bratz: The Movie, September Dawn, and Transformers), but lost both categories to Eddie Murphy for Norbit.
The film was nominated for Best Movie at the 2008 MTV Movie Awards, but lost to Transformers.
HOME MEDIA & NOVELIZATION
National Treasure: Book of Secrets was released on DVD, UMD, and Blu-ray Disc on May 20, 2008 (June 2, 2008 in the UK). In the opening weekend, 3,178,631 DVD units were sold, bringing in $50,826,310 in revenue. As of August 2009, 5,873,640 DVD units have been sold, generating revenue of $93,132,076. This does not include Blu-ray Disc sales or DVD rentals.
The film has been re-titled National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets for all three releases. The film's official website has also been changed accordingly.
A special edition, called the "National Treasure Presidential Edition", contains National Treasure and National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets inside a letter book which is a replica of the Presidents' secret book from National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets.
Disney Press published an official novelization of the screenplay titled National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets The Junior Novel on November 6, 2007. Parts of the story in the novel version differ slightly from what was actually filmed, owing to changes being made in the screenplay prior to and during production. For example, in the novel, Ben and Abigail photograph the wooden plank found hidden in the Queen's desk and leave it behind, with the car chase following. However, in the movie, they take the plank with them on the chase.
Also published on the same day as the official novelization was a companion youth novel Changing Tides: A Gates Family Mystery by Catherine Hapka. Its story is set in England in the year 1612 and is the first in a series of planned historical novels about the Gates family. The epilogue from Changing Tides is included at the back of the National Treasure book. The second youth novel by Hapka, Midnight Ride: A Gates Family Mystery, was published on March 8, 2008.
HISTORICAL ACCURACY
The group mentioned in the film as being behind the assassination of
Abraham Lincoln and pursuing the city of
gold, The Knights of the Golden Circle, had actually disbanded in 1863. It was based in Cincinnati, Ohio, where its founder George W. L. Bickley resided. A native of Virginia, Bickley had been known for being an adventurer and also bad with finances. His focus was not on preserving the Confederate States of America (CSA), but restoring slavery in neighboring countries to the south, which he wanted to make part of a proposed nation dubbed "Golden Circle." While some members of the group would join the Confederate Army, Bickley was more focused on colonizing parts of northern
Mexico as slave states. He would not join the Confederate Army until after his expeditions in Mexico faltered in 1863. Soon afterwards, the organization was exposed and many members were arrested while attempting to steal numerous gold shipments from San Francisco Bay.
Following the outbreak of the American Civil War numerous Golden Circle members were not focused on fighting Union states north of the Mason-Dixon Line as the film suggests, but were pre-occupied with making the Union territory of
New Mexico a part of the proposed Golden Circle nation. Those who operated in the North mostly aligned with Copperhead politicians who preferred a negotiated end to the war. Bickley, who served the Confederate Army for months as a surgeon to General Braxton Bragg, would be captured in Indiana in July 1863 on charges of being a Confederate spy and remained in house arrest until October 1865. The month before his arrest, Bickley abandoned the Confederate Army after preferring to settle in Tennessee. Former members would also name its successor organization the Order of the Sons of Liberty in 1864, the year before Lincoln's assassination. This successor organization was exposed the same year it was founded and members were arrested and tried for treason.
The film's suggestion that Britain wanted a strong alliance with the Confederate States of America was also highly unlikely. Efforts which were made by Confederate Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin to persuade Britain to simply recognize the Confederate States of America proved unsuccessful.
The wooden plank map hidden within both Resolute Desks that leads to the location of Cíbola would have been of no use to the Confederacy, as the desks were constructed and delivered between the years 1879 and 1880, some 15 years after the American Civil War concluded and the disbandment of the Confederate states. Similarly, the clues left by Édouard Laboulaye would have been equally of no use, as the earliest models of the
Statue of Liberty and all subsequent replicas were all constructed no earlier than 1875, 10 years after the end of the Civil War.
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