A Reel 20: NATIONAL TREASURE

“Who wants to go down the creepy tunnel inside the tomb first?”

This month marks the 20^th anniversary of NATIONAL TREASURE. 

 

Directed by Jon Turteltaub and released by Walt Disney Pictures, NATIONAL TREASURE was a treasure hunt and heist film where a historian races against competing treasure hunters and the FBI to find a Freemason fortune lost for hundreds of years…which includes a map hidden on the Declaration of Independence. 

 

The search for this treasure began in 1999, when filmmaker Jon Turteltaub, who had success in directing 3 NINJAS (1992), COOL RUNNINGS (1993), and PHENOMENON (1996), developed the idea along with film executive Charles Segars, with a script by Jim Kouf. In 2001, the project was picked up by Touchstone Pictures and would be produced by legendary producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Drafts of the script would be written by nine different writers. 

 

The impressive cast would include Nicolas Cage as Benjamin Franklin Gates, along with Sean Bean as his rival. Diane Kruger would play an archivist, and Justin Bartha would play Gates’ sidekick. Jon Voight would play Bates’ father, and Christopher Plummer would play his grandfather. Harvey Keitel would play the FBI agent in charge of the chase. Filming would take place mostly on location in Los Angeles, Washington D.C., New York, Philadelphia, and Utah. Trevor Rabin would provide the score. 

 

Despite mixed reviews, NATIONAL TREASURE would be a box office hit, and would have the best opening weekend for a Disney film until it was surpassed by CHICKEN LITTLE in 2005. It held on to the No. 1 spot for three weekends, and would finish as the 12^th highest grossing film of the year worldwide. Trevor Rabin would win a BMI Film & TV Award for the score. A sequel would follow in 2007, along with a TV series in 2022. 

 

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NATIONAL TREASURE, showing no shame, borrows heavily from the famed INDIANA JONES franchise; racing from location to location following clues while being pursued by bad guys, searching tombs and tunnels, and providing a thrill a minute. NATIONAL TREASURE did not quite reach the heights of INDY, but it certainly did try its hardest and does recapture the spirit. Saturated in American history, it takes its liberties with what really happened and has a blast with it, and is a good example of how much fun the movies can be when they don’t follow the rules of reality. Over time it has become a bit of a cult classic, and perhaps its best legacy happens on the streets of Philadelphia. Much like tourists pointing at the Empire State Building looking for King Kong, tourists in Philly point at Independence Hall where Nic Cage went sprinting after another clue. That’s the type of thing that goes for a couple hundred years.

 

 

“I’m going to steal the Declaration of Independence…”

A Reel 20: THE INCREDIBLES

“No matter how many times you save the world, it always manages to get back in jeopardy again…”

 

This week marks the 20th anniversary of THE INCREDIBLES. 

 

Written and directed by Brad Bird, and produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by 
Walt Disney Pictures, THE INCREDIBLES followed a family of superheroes who live in hiding after a government mandate, who eventually come into battle with a vengeful foe. 

 

THE INCREDIBLES was conceived by Brad Bird in 1993, who came up with the idea as a metaphor for his own struggles with his career and family balance. After Bird’s animated film THE IRON GIANT struggled at the box office in 1999, Bird brought the idea to his old classmate John Lasseter at Pixar. Bird wrote the script alone, which was a departure from Pixar’s standard of having several writers on their projects. 

 

Bird brought in animators from his IRON GIANT team, who had to make the leap from 2D to 3D animation. With this being the first feature length film from Pixar with all human characters, new technology was developed to animate detailed human anatomy, including clothing, skin, and hair. 

 

The cast would include Craig T. Nelson (Mr. Incredible), Holly Hunter (Mrs. Incredible), Jason Lee (Syndrome), Samuel L. Jackson (Frozone), along with Sarah Vowell, Spencer Fox, and John Ratzenberger. Brad Bird would provide the voice of Edna. Michael Giacchino did the score. 

 

THE INCREDIBLES was released wide on November 4th in 2004, and was met with excellent reviews. At the box office, it would finish as the 4th highest grossing film of the year, behind SHREK 2, HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN, and SPIDER-MAN 2. At the 77th Academy Awards, it would win Best Animated Feature and Sound Editing, and be nominated for Original Screenplay and Sound Mixing. A sequel would follow in 2018, and the characters would have a strong presence in Disney parks. 

 

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2004 was a different time for superheroes on the big screen. Although there were hits such as SPIDER-MAN that year and X-MEN a couple years before, things were quiet for our caped wonders. After all, this was four years before IRON MAN and the MCU began. THE INCREDIBLES cannot be credited with launching the genre that would dominate screens for the next two decades, nor can it be lumped into the lot…simply because it is the most of unique of its kind. As an original work, it was not tied down to endless comic origins, and as a Disney release, had strong family themes that resonated. True to Pixar form, it spoke to older audiences; exploring themes of men dealing with middle-age and feeling their best days are behind them. And for fans of cinema, THE INCREDIBLES was saturated in film lore…borrowing elements from James Bond and classic good vs. evil tropes, while offering thoughtful deconstructions of the classic superhero character. One of Pixar’s most super. 

 

“…we’re superheroes. What could happen?”