Before he was making questionable career choices, Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage had a hit franchise in the form of National Treasure and speaking at a recent event Cage has offered an update of sorts on the belated third entry.

“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.”

Released in 2007, National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets stormed the box office taking more than $450 million worldwide and surpassed the success of the original. Director Jon Turteltaub has often spoken about the possibility of a third movie and back in 2013 (in an interview with Collider) he revealed that production would start in the next year or two.

“I’ll bet that within two years, we’ll be shooting that movie. We’re closer. I’d say we’re about half-way there. It’s not only writing a great historical mystery, but we’ve gotta write something that has nothing to do with anything we’ve done before. The goal is to always have an original sequel, as silly as that sounds. We really want to make sure that the third one doesn’t just feel like a repeat of the first one, or one too many.”

Three years on from Turteltaub’s comments and National Treasure 3 has yet to emerge from development hell. In recent years Nicolas Cage has delved into making DTV (direct to video) movies, occasionally he turns in a good performance (Joe, Bad Lieutenant, Kick-Ass), but it has been quite some time since he delivered anything on par with Adaptation. Reprising his role as adventurer Ben Gates is unlikely to bring Cage critically acclaim, it might give him a sorely needed box office hit.

The last time Cage and Turteltaub worked together it resulted in a rare box office flop for Disney. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice was meant to launch a franchise, but it was so poorly received it wound up losing money. Nicolas Cage can currently be seen (back on form) in selected cinemas in buddy cop thriller The Trust alongside Elijah Wood.