As James Brown, the self-proclaimed Godfather of Soul, once so presciently put it, you've got to get up to get down. This simple truth is currently being ably demonstrated on the Los Angeles set of National Treasure, Jerry Bruckheimer and Nicholas Cage's fourth action movie collaboration.

Cage, along with co-stars Diane Kruger, Sean Bean, Jon Voight, Justin Bartha and miscellaneous B-players ripe for sacrifice, are filming a scene that purports to be taking place in the secret catacombs that lie under modern-day New York City. This motley crew of friends and foes have stumbled on a shaft over 100 feet deep, a perfect setting for at least one of them to take an unexpectedly hasty journey to its base.

Unfortunately for all concerned, however, the owners of Stage 26 on the Warner Bros Lot have little tolerance for the digging of giant holes through their beloved studio floor, so instead the shaft has been erected 100 feet high. Our assembled cast - along with director Jon Turteltaub, camera and lighting crew and various assistants, gaffers and grips - is currently suspended loftily above ground zero on wobbly ledges and even wobblier cranes, and looking more than a little unsettled over the experience.

Between takes and back on terra firma, Cage looks back at the giant shaft looming behind him and makes what is, quite frankly, an obvious observation. "It really is quite high up," he says simply, dusting down his jean jacket. Empire nods in agreement.

"The problem is, the railings are not really secure," he elaborates. "They're just hammered in with nails, so there's nothing really there to protect yourself with if you do slip and fall. I never get too relaxed."
A nervous looking man with a scruffy beard and thinning hair, meanwhile, is currently pushing the boundaries of this whole 'not too relaxed' business: director Jon Turteltaub. But it's schedules, not altitude, that are ruining his day.

"The thing is," he begins, looking a tad sweaty, "we didn't have the script finished when we started shooting. This whole last sequence in the big shaft; well, we started shooting the movie in September and wrote this scene in November. So that gets written and you've got to build the set and you've got to stage it and shoot it; while you're actually making a movie!"

A few more hairs ease their way out of his head and fall silently onto his shoulders...


"PROBLEMS with the script" has been something of a rallying cry with the making of National Treasure. On the surface it's a relatively simple, North by Northwest-style chase across America, as the good guys and the bad guys - along with the sexy girl, of course - try to outwit each other in the search for missing treasure. Until, that is, some bright spark had the even brighter idea of attempting to marry - Da Vinci Code style - each and every detail of the chase to some element of historical truth.

Hence our treasure, for example, isn't just some randomly fictionalised crate or two of exotic jewels but instead the real-life Knights Templar Treasure, a priceless and still missing hoard that the monastic secret-warrior society excavated at the Temple of Solomon. Similarly, clues to the location of said treasure are hidden not by some eye-patched pirate with a parrot crapping on his shoulder but by America's founding fathers who left clues to its whereabouts on everyday objects like the dollar bill.

It's an approach that's gone on to reward Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown with a bestseller: an international murder mystery linked to 2,000 years of Western history, itself slated to be released as a film helmed by Ron Howard in 2006. However, uber-producer Jerry Bruckheimer - the man behind 2003's huge action success Pirates of the Caribbean and 2004's really-not-quite-so-successful King Arthur - insists that any similarity is strictly coincidental, a trick of the Zeitgeist.

"We had National Treasure in production way before Da Vinci Code was even published," Bruckheimer says. "I always wanted to make a treasure hunt movie that was smart, and this one is especially exciting because it's steeped in real American history. Even though National Treasure is big, broad entertainment, it's actually very clever."

Marrying big broad entertainment to a painstakingly detailed micro-lesson in American history turned out to be harder to get right than originally anticipated. First, director Jon Turteltaub had a stab at producing the film himself before raising his hands in defeat and admitting he needed a little help.

"Truthfully I wanted to do it all myself," Turteltaub admits. "I was set on producing my own movie but it got so big that I said I'd be foolish to not have some great partner like Jerry Bruckheimer."

Bruckheimer was excited enough about the project to get on board, and Turteltaub was pleasantly surprised by the participation and approach of his new work chum.

"Jerry Bruckheimer is not the guy I was expecting," he says. "I thought he was going to be a big loud pompous angry movie producer who just wanted to get in as many explosions as possible and forget about the story. But at the end of the day he said to me that the action always ends up good. Instead, worry about getting the story right and making the characters interesting."

Easier said than done. Despite Bruckheimer pulling in Shrek and Pirates scribes Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, it still needed the input of a team of up to 20 writers - each specialists in fields ranging from 'plot development' to 'female dialogue'- to pull together a workable script.

"This is a very difficult story to tell," admits Bruckheimer. "Just to come up with the clues and the reality. That's why it took eight years to get a screenplay we felt we could get Disney to write a big cheque for."

"Getting the script right was so terribly frustrating," adds Turteltaub, who's directing his first big-budget actioner after more modest successes with Cool Runnings, While You Were Sleeping, Phenomenon and The Kid. "To write a mystery that was based in historical fact and make it all believable and real; all of these little things were monumental. It's been so painful and difficult to make it that I will always be anchored by the misery of the movie. It's been a sleepless four years."

Ironically it was this intelligent fact-meets-fiction mix that actually helped convince Cage to sign on as the Indiana Jones-esque hero, Ben Gates, who's followed in his family's footsteps and spent his entire life searching for the Knights Templar Treasure. As far as Bruckheimer was concerned, Cage was always the first choice for the role. The producer initially recognised his potential as an action hero after seeing him in Peggy Sue Got Married and Moonstruck - "I always thought he could be a matinee idol and a big action hero," he says of the star- and subsequently cast him in 1996's The Rock, following it up with action roles in 97's Con Air and 2000's Gone in Sixty Seconds. For Cage, filming National Treasure meant he could add a 'with-a-brain' tag to his action hero portfolio.

"I was attracted by the enthusiasm of my character," Cage explains. "He's a very intelligent man who's passionate about this treasure. Plus the idea of a man who is so enthusiastic about history - which is not my favourite subject - seemed like a challenge. How can I make people exited about history?"

It's actually a very good question, and the answer may end up being the key to National Treasure's success or failure. While there's no doubting everyone's sterling efforts to produce an action thriller rooted to historical accuracy, does anyone actually care? It's possible that contemporary action movie audiences used to more animated heroes don't have the attention span - or even the interest - to sit through a complex history lesson when they may just be waiting to see more stuff being blown up.

Cage, however, is convinced they're on the right path.
"I think this movie can stimulate young people's minds to be a little more interested about what they are reading in school. My own tastes were in ancient history like The Roman Empire, but having worked on National Treasure I became so fascinated with the genius of people like Benjamin Franklin and the idea that they were inventors. Ultimately I see this as a ride. There are a lot of levels in the script - it's like a giant puzzle."

"Look, we'll see how it turns out," shrugs Bruckheimer, a man of few words. "You never know what's gonna happen when it's all finished, but so far it looks great."


MEARLY a year later Studio 26 is fully vacated, National Treasure is about to hit Multiplexes nationwide and Bruckheimer and Mr Cage - now dressed head to toe in leather and wearing more bling than a Five Counties rapper - are reunited in Washington DC for a meet-the-press session. A few blocks from our hotel The Declaration of Independence - which in one of the film's key scenes Cage steals so he can access an invisible treasure map on its back - is securely behind bullet-proof glass in the National Archives.

The subject of the movie's dense history lesson quickly rears its head again. Bruckheimer is a little less emotive than Cage about how audiences may take to it, putting his faith in more quantifiable measures: market research.

"We've tested the movie and they love it," he says, case closed. "Based on our previews we've got eight-year-old kids telling us they wish school could be like this."

Despite Bruckheimer's enormous success as a film producer over the years - classics like American Gigolo, Beverly Hills Cop, Days of Thunder and Top Gun are all his - outside of Pirates of the Caribbean, much of his recent success has been in television. CSI is consistently the US's number one rated show and has spawned two successful spin-offs, CSI: Miami and CSI:NY. Meanwhile, his Amazing Race picked up a 2004 Emmy for best reality show.

On the big screen, however, 2003's Veronica Guerin and 2004's King Arthur didn't quite live up to expectations.

"You know, Veronica Guerin wasn't exactly an uplifting story and we knew that going into in," he says. "That's why we made it for very little money, and it's still a piece of work I'm extremely proud of. As for King Arthur, in hindsight we had the wrong release date in this country. It came out four days after Spiderman and got crushed by it. But it made $50million here and $150million foreign, so that's not exactly a flop."

Is there pressure to come back with a big hit?

"From the media maybe. Of course you don't want to fail, but I'm not losing my money, I'm losing somebody else's. However, you want the studios to get back their investment and make a profit - that's why you're in the business. Otherwise I'd be just living in a tiny apartment in Hollywood with a neon sign outside my window flashing into the room."

Regardless of National Treasure's fortunes, it's unlikely Mr Bruckheimer will be needing a U-Haul any time soon, especially with Pirates 2 at final script stage and Pirates 3 already being planned. And despite acknowledging the pain of the process, the mood after the film's debut press screening in Washington is confident, and relaxed too. Cage and Turteltaub are enjoying a little downtime discussing some personal history: over 20 years ago the two Hollywood natives attended Beverly Hills High School together.

"I remember him being very popular and very socially acceptable," says Cage of Turteltaub. "And I was very shy and withdrawn. I invited him over to my house just to make friends, but he never invited me to his house."

"He keeps saying that," laughs Turteltaub. "In my memory there were invitations, he just never came. I probably just thought he wouldn't come, that he was too cool. But I tell you - he wasn't sitting at home being all sad. Don't buy that from Nic for a second."

After years of watching his old school buddy "get rich while I was in college writing bad papers", Turteltaub's thrilled to finally be collaborating, especially on what has the potential to become his very first bonafide blockbuster.

"You know, most of my movies are surprise hits," Turteltaub admits with a smile. "I haven't had that movie that opens to $100million. This is the first time I've done one that has that chance. The danger lies when you start to picture that actually happening - then you can only be disappointed. I think I'd probably become a jerk if I ever got that successful."

Will National Treasure make you a jerk?

"At this point I'd be just thrilled to be a jerk."