Despite my lack of enthusiasm, I’ve got to give it to Jon Turteltaub; making a third National Treasure makes sense. Neither the original nor Book of Treasure faired well with the critics, yet both went on to pull in massive hauls at the box office. Combined, the film earned over $800 million worldwide.

So now it’s really no surprise that Turteltaub is moving forward with National Treasure 3 and rather soon at that. While at the premiere of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, from which he recently plucked NT 3′s new writers, Carlo Bernard and Doug Miro, the director told Coming Soon, “I think we start shooting late fall, early winter. Hopefully that’s the goal and I think it will come out Christmas 2011. That’s assuming everyone is available, the script is good and I haven’t thrown a tantrum.”

When asked where he’d take the third film, Turteltaub joked, “Where Avatar went. $700 million dollars. I want to see 3D and space. There could be treasure on Pandora.” He added, “That would be the worst movie ever. Horrible!”

Turteltaub can take the plot anywhere he’d like, but the one thing that must remain constant is the cast, namely Cage. Even with the Ghost Rider sequel on the horizon, Turteltaub has no concerns about Cage’s availability. “We won’t make National Treasure without Nic and they won’t make Ghost Rider without Nic so everyone will find a way to make both movies.”

His confidence in Cage returning is great and all, but it doesn’t sound like the film is on track for that Christmas 2011 release. At one point he even admits, “an actor’s schedule is three to four months. Whereas a movies takes a year and a half.” Well, it’s already the summer of 2010, so he’s in crunch time.

By Perri Nemiroff