Opening this Friday is âNational Treasure Book of Secrets,â the sequel to the huge hit âNational Treasure.â So to help promote the film, I recently attended a press day where I got to interview most of the cast and the filmmakers who made it.
But before getting to the interviewâ¦a few words. While Iâve seen a ton of movies these past few weeks, films that are sure to be nominated for Oscars and movies that will be remembered for years⦠the one film everyone asks me about is âNational Treasure.â Seriously. If my friends and family are any barometer for the success of a movieâ¦Disney is about to have a HUGE hit on their hands. Even my dad, who rarely goes to the movies, wants to see this film.
And for those wonderingâ¦here are my two cents on the sequel. Did you like the first film? Then youâll like the sequel, as itâs more of the same. But I do want to emphasize not thinking too hard about the plausibility of what youâre watching, because if you try and think about it⦠youâll just ruin the ride and not have any fun. Simply put, âNational Treasure Book of Secretsâ is a great popcorn movie and audiences are going to eat it up. Now about this interview...
Posted below is the mini press conference with Jon Turteltaub â the director of âNational Treasure.â
During our time Jon talked about how a lot of what we see in these movies is actually based on real things, and he was quite honest about what he expects the critics to do to the movie. But what I really took away from the interview was just how funny he is. Seriously, if youâre going to listen to any of the âNational Treasureâ interviews listen to this one. He constantly says funny stuff and itâs all worth listening to. And for all you "
As usual, you can either read the transcript below or download the audio as an MP3 by clicking here. And if you want to watch some clips from the movie, you can do so here.
âNational Treasure Book of Secretsâ opens this Friday at theaters everywhere.
Jon Turteltaub: Let me tell you something, no matter what I do the reviewers are not going to like this movie. Thatâs the way it goes. Some of you are reviewers, right? There you go.
Question: Why do you say that?
Jon: They didnât like the first one, and so if they didnât like the first one they have to pretend they did to like this one, because this one really isnât that different than the first one.
Q: Actually, I think I can prove you wrong because I probably wrote some not nice things about the first one, and I liked this one a lot more.
Jon: Why is that?
Q: I guess we can talk about it later. I think itâs more fun, I think itâs sharper.
Jon: But maybe itâs more fun and sharper because now you get the joke, but you were a little slow to get it the first time. [laughter]
Q: I wrote last night, âmaybe Iâm smarter than I was three years ago.â
Jon: I love that, I love that. What was odd too was that a lot of the reviews the first time said this movie is really stupid, and I thought, âReally?â That was the one thing I didnât think people would say about the first one, because â
Q: What would they say about this one?
Jon: Oh, this oneâs very stupid. I think people think we made up most of it, but we didnât and we got attacked for history not making sense. We didnât make this stuff up, those are the glasses Ben Franklin designed, those are the buildings where the stuff happened, we didnât make up the letters, this is all real stuff. And none of us had even heard of The Da Vinci Code when we wrote the script, none of us had read it, because weâd been told itâs similar, so none of us read it when we made the movie and then we got accused of stealing from it. And then when that movie came out all those critics had to like that movie more, because theyâd already told us ours wasnât as good as that. It got confusing.
Q: I think the thing that may have hurt the first one more than the Da Vinci Code parallels was that about the same time you came out, PBSâ Nova did a story about the ultra protection of the Declaration of Independence, and how it was locked up.
Jon: But what was interesting is that that story wasnât really right, because I saw that Nova when it came out. Iâd been to the archives, and I got a tour of how the Declaration was kept, and what was amazing is honestly it was kept like in a safe that youâd have in your house, and they had a halon gas thing so that if there was a fire, the fire would go out, but basically Ernie the janitor could have gone in and shown it to you. After 9/11 they went, âAh, itâs safe,â and spirited it away and redid the security system. But they had already given us all the plans of the new security system, which we had, so we just did what they told us, it goes down that tube and down the thing into the room and it goes across the hall when theyâre working on it, into that other room. It was art and then we got told oh we made up a fake system, thatâs what happens, just like that. Donât blame me, blame â
Q: Given all the bad reviews the first one got, were you apprehensive to come back to make the second one?
Jon: No, because [to the first row] donât listen, donât listen, donât listen, the people we know who have families in Texas and aunt and uncles in Minnesota matter a lot more to us than the critics. One of the problems all of us have is we all see too many movies and so we just donât watch movies right, we canât help it, we know whatâs coming, we canât help but know where this is going, weâve seen that actor in too many movies that year, and at too many lunches that year, so if you listen and you really talk to people and you go into someoneâs house and you see the movie on the shelf, and you see itâs been watched, theyâre watching that movie and you know that thereâs something that crept into the, sorry, but the zeitgeist on it. I read references â you know on line, on the YouTube thing it says, there was something about a fire and someone said, âIt looked really like National Treasure,â thatâs a sign to me that itâs out there. And then we said, you know what, it made money but not all in its opening weekend, it built, so there was word of mouth that made the success of the first movie. And the DVD life was so strong. Thatâs all about just people telling each other to watch the movie. And you look and you go, okay, we did better [in the] red States than blue States, and thereâs probably more of you working in blue States than red States, so what does that mean to a movie, and by better, not worldâs better, but thereâs things. And we said, well, letâs do a sequel, but letâs start by coming up with ideas and a script. We donât green light a movie until we know weâve got a movie to make. And if thereâs a sequel to this one itâll be because not it opens well, but because it has some shelf life, you can smell whether audiences liked it or liked it. And if the new story we come up with works, and we feel confident, then weâll do our best to get all the exact same people together again and do it again.
Q: Have you written yourself into a corner with this page 47?
Jon: You know what? We can always tell people thatâs the fourth movie. That doesnât work. Iâve actually seen movies that seem like theyâre setting up for the sequel and that wasnât the sequel.
Q: Bruce was telling people in the lobby of the theatre last night, they were asking him what was on page 47, and he was saying, âThatâs the next movie.â
Jon: Iâll tell you, what is on page 47 is I think the single greatest secret in
Q: What happened with the Lincoln Memorial scene, why was it cut â
Jon: [his phone goes off] I think my ass is ringing, hang on one second. Hereâs what happened, itâs funny youâre the first person to ask, because Iâve been asked a ton about the Lincoln Memorial and youâre the first person to mention, wait a minute, itâs not in the movie. In fact, what is so great is, Iâve been watching all these TV commercials and most of the commercials â the problem is, commercials always give the movie away, well in this case it didnât because nothing in the commercials made it into the final movie. [everyone laughs] And we keep looking at the commercials going, âThatâs good, why did we cut that?â But they make the commercials based on dailies and your first four hour cut; they donât know whatâs going on.
Q: What was the scene?
Jon: Hereâs what happened in that scene. That was going to go somewhere between when Nic goes and talks to Harvey Keitel and finds out this book is real and thereâs no way to get it, and telling everyone heâs going to kidnap the President to get it, not that he does that in the movie, he had to deal with whether it was worthy â is this worth it and what is the risk heâs personally taking? It was part of a little sequence, and he goes at sunrise basically to the Lincoln Memorial and heâs standing there in front of Lincoln, and itâs sort of a dialogue between their expressions and faces, and he notices the Gettysburg Address and reads the Gettysburg Address which includes the line which does come up later, âthe last full measure of devotionâ is mentioned in the Gettysburg Address. And in understanding what people give, because there are issues greater in life than your own safety, he realizes this is something he needs to do, whether for his great grandfather, his current father, or even his friend Riley who said, âTrust me on this book thing,â But it became a little too mushy, sappy and meaningful maybe to some Americans, but you make movies now for the population of the whole planet, and it just sat there as â
Q: Too rah rah?
Jon: Too rah rah, and too yucky.
Q: Will you put that on the DVD?
Jon: Yeah, probably. The photographyâs too nice, so youâve got to show it somewhere.
Q: Wasnât it tough to get permission to go inside the Lincoln Memorial?
Jon: Itâs very tough. A lot of restrictions went with it. Theyâll often give permission for documentaries because the crews are very small. Surprisingly whatâs tough about shooting in these places is not security, theyâre okay with â they know youâre not blowing the place up, their biggest concern is that youâre going to ruin the vacation of a family from Iowa who spent a lot of money to go see the Lincoln Memorial, and whatâs great about America is that the Walt Disney Company is not more important than that family on vacation. So we needed to promise them that we wouldnât upset access, that we wouldnât ruin someoneâs trip, we could only send six people in, and you add to it that the Lincoln Memorial is a little special, it somehow has a spiritual quality to it, and Iâm telling you it sounds dumb and hokey, but youâll feel it if you go, thereâs something very â
Q: Spiritual?
Jon: Sacred. I was going to try it, I didnât have my Thesaurus. But there is a hallowed ground aspect to it, and youâll hear people lower their voice when they go in because he was killed and because of the awkwardness and humble visage of Lincoln, and you read those words that are inscribed on the walls, itâs really very special and they donât want to destroy that quality by having a circus inside there.
Q: What about shooting in
Jon: Screw them! Same really. The same. Shooting on the streets of
Q: How long?
Jon: Nine weeks of weekends to do that. Itâs not cheap.
Q: What about
Jon: No. We kind of had the inside scoop on palaces that look like Buckingham Palance from Helen Mirren. Sheâs like, âYou want good Queen stuff, I got the Queen stuff.â Experts. We created, recreated some stuff. Thereâs an extraordinary palace literally across the square from
Q: John, I want to ask about
Jon: And CBS will probably put it on against âAmerican Idol.â [Laughs] Thatâs probably how thatâs going to go. Yeah, maybe. The problem is if itâs a hit, then what? Thereâs seven episodes. We have seven episodes waiting to be aired but if theyâre great, thereâs no eighth episode. So who knows? Who knows?
Q: Have they given you an air date yet?
Jon: No, but the rumblings are maybe February. Theyâre looking sometime in February. I think thatâs when theyâve kind of exhausted what they have. I think itâs changed, you know, the notion of canceling shows went out the window because they have nothing to replace shows with so they might as well show what theyâve paid for and see where it takes them. The strike is bad for everybody.
Q: How hard will it be to mount up after seven? Is everyone all split up again?
Jon: Oh no. We can get going. You just got to do it and if the strikeâs not over, itâs a problem. Thereâs no scripts.
Q: I mean you can get picked up for after the strike?
Jon: Thatâs true. If we get picked up for September, great. But see this is what they know they made the mistake with the first time was when we went off the air for 13 weeks, the momentum of the Fall season went away and when we came back after the 11 weeks off, we had lost the flow. Look, the same thing happened to Heroes. Heroes had 30% of its viewers lost from the beginning of the season until the end of the season and that was considered a big hit.
Q: Was that because they intentionally chopped it in the middle and wait? What is the theory behind this?
Jon: People arenât really watching TV during Christmas time, in January, and we want the season to go longer and soâ¦
Q: Do you want to pay for extra actors?
Jon: Well more than that, the belief is that on serials like
Q: We heard that you just finished the film just a few days ago.
Jon: Yeah, basically.
Q: How challenging was it? How much pressure was there to deliver the film? Iâm curious how many scenes and how many minutes might have been cut out and might be on the DVD?
Jon: Nothing gets cut out because you donât have time to make the movie unfortunately. I would have loved for them to say âYou only have six more weeks. Donât bother with this.â They go, âYou only got six more weeks. Youâd better hurry.â The movie comes first so you just have to ⦠Iâm not kidding. Itâs 7 days a week, sometimes 24-hour days for 5 straight days. Thatâs another reason why movies cost a lot of money. Youâre working as hard as you can and then one day youâre driving down the street and you see your poster with a date on it. Okay? The movieâs coming out that day so youâre put in the position of how good is your movie going to be and I can stay here and not see my kid or I can just say thatâs the best I can do. Itâs a tough position to put people in but what are you going to do.
Q: I was just going to ask about the DVD. Do you have 20 or 30 minutes you think is going to end up on the DVD?
Jon: Thereâs two answers to that. The first cut was 3 hours and 55 minutes long. Okay? So thereâs about an hour and 50 minutes cut. Thatâs a movie. Thatâs an actual version 3 done. I want $11 million please. The fact of the matter isâ¦alright hereâs a little inside scoop. Everybody believes in the financial world that âPirates of the