The new National Treasure series will be a dream come true for those hoping for a Latina lead.
A new television series based on the commercially successful film franchise starring Nicolas Cage will feature a 21-year-old “Dreamer,” or immigrant brought to the United States illegally as a child, named Jess Morales, setting off on adventures with her “diverse group of friends” to explore history and recover lost treasure, according to a report by Deadline. The series will reportedly be directed by Mira Nair. The franchise’s producer Jerry Bruckheimer and original writers Marianne and Cormac Wibberley are also slated to join the project.
National Treasure, which saw Cage’s Benjamin Gates sift through historical clues in search of the secret location of a “national treasure,” was followed by a 2007 sequel, National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets. Plans for another sequel, National Treasure 3, fell through because the Walt Disney Company, which produced both films, did not view the films as a franchise, according to production executive Jason Reed.
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“What I felt happened is even though the movies were extremely successful and had a really strong fan base, it’s a movie that gets brought up all the time. The company was never able to capitalize on it as a franchise,” he said, according to Syfy. “It was more of a movie with a sequel, and National Treasure 3 would have been another sequel.”
The new series follows an effort on the part of many in Hollywood to showcase racially diverse characters in TV shows and movies. Last year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences mandated racial quotas for films to qualify for Best Picture awards.
“The aperture must widen to reflect our diverse global population in both the creation of motion pictures and in the audiences who connect with them. The Academy is committed to playing a vital role in helping make this a reality,” Academy President David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson said in a press release. “We believe these inclusion standards will be a catalyst for long-lasting, essential change in our industry.”
Disney+ has also attempted to limit the circulation of older films that contain stereotypes deemed offensive, removing films such as Dumbo and Peter Pan from children’s profiles on March 9.
“We can’t change the past, but we can acknowledge it, learn from it and move forward together to create a tomorrow that today can only dream of,” the company said in a statement.
Other entertainment companies have given socially conscious face-lifts to existing brands in recent weeks. Last Friday, Hasbro announced it was ditching prompts such as winning a “beauty contest” or winning “life insurance” because “the world has changed a lot since Monopoly became a household name” and dropped gendered branding from Mr. Potato Head last month.
“Hasbro is making sure all feel welcome in the Potato Head world by officially dropping the Mr. from the Mr. Potato Head brand name and logo to promote gender equality and inclusion. In the fall, the new Potato Family Pack ‘Create Your Potato Head Family’ will celebrate the many faces of families allowing kids to imagine and create their own Potato Head family,” Hasbro said in a statement. “The name change will come with a fresh branding look with a whimsical color palette and more inclusive messaging along with new product to appeal to the modern consumer.”
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Representatives for Disney, Nair, and Reed’s production company, Brick Moon Fiction, did not immediately reply to the Washington Examiner’s requests for comment.
