IESB.net reported yesterday that Disney’s Dick Cook, along with Nicolas Cage and mega-director Jerry Bruckheimer have confirmed a third installment of their “National Treasure” series, rumored to be hitting theaters during Christmastime 2010. It comes as a surprise as a third film in the series has been expected but not announced yet.

The National Treasure movies focus on Nicolas Cage’s character Benjamin Franklin Gates, a historian and treasure hunter who works to find and protect a variety of lost historical treasures and legends in the United States, dating back to the Founding Fathers, from whom the Gates character is descended from.

The first film brought us Gates rescuing an ancient Templar treasure from beneath a trap-riddled tomb using his prodigious knowledge to decode a mysterious series of riddles. The second film, “National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets”, had Gates clearing his family’s name from being implicated in the history of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and finding a legendary Aztec city and the treasure it held.

Besides Cage, the movies also star John Voight as Ben Gates’ father Patrick Henry Gates, Diane Kruger as his love interest and later girlfriend Abigail Chase, and Justin Bartha as Ben’s tech-savvy assistant-cum-sidekick Riley Poole. Sean Bean as the rogue treasure hunter Ian Howe. Ed Harris and Helen Mirren joined the cast for “Book of Secrets” as antagonist Mitch Wilkinson and Gates’ mother Emily Appleton, respectively.

Stay tuned to Toxic Shock TV for more.

By Costa Koutsoutis, source; (IESB.net)