With every passing day comes the crushing realization that there’s not a third National Treasure movie. It could still happen, eventually, but as director Jon Turteltaub explained, “Disney feels they have other films they want to make that they think will make them more money. I think they’re wrong.” They are wrong. Couldn’t some of that Dark Phoenix dough have gone to National Treasure 3? (Yes.) Anyway, while the world waits for more Declaration of Independence-obsessed adventures from Benjamin Gates, the actor who plays him, Nicolas Cage, searched for the Holy Grail. I don’t mean that metaphorically; Oscar nominee Nic Cage was literally on a globe-trotting quest to find the Holy Grail.
In a must-read interview with the New York Times, Cage revealed that after he paid $276,000 for a dinosaur skull (relatable), he “started following mythology, and I was finding properties that aligned with that. It was almost like National Treasure. Of course, that didn’t sustain.” Of course. He added, “One thing would lead to another. It’s like when you build a library. You read a book, and in it there’s a reference to another book, and then you buy that book, and then you attach the references. For me it was all about where was the grail? Was it here? Was it there? Is it at Glastonbury? Does it exist?”
I have never believed in the Holy Grail existing. But now I’m certain it’s real.
Such is the power of Cage, who continued, “Legend had it that in [the Chalice Well] was a grail chalice, or two cruets rather, one of blood and one of sweat. But that led to there being talk that people had come to Rhode Island, and they were looking for something as well.” (More sentences should it begin, “Legend had it…”) Would it surprise you that Nic Cage owns property in Rhode Island?
It shouldn’t!
“I don’t know if I’m going to say that’s why I bought the Rhode Island property. But I will say that is why I went to Rhode Island, and I happened to find the place beautiful. But yes, this had put me on a search around different areas, mostly in England, but also some places in the States. What I ultimately found is: What is the Grail but Earth itself?” (Via)
Nicolas Cage is our greatest mind, and National Treasure is a documentary.
(Via New York Times)
