Mira Nair to direct National Treasure series for Disney+

After directing the limited series A Suitable Boy (2020), based on Vikram Seth’s beloved novel of the same name, Mira Nair is taking on another series, this time for the streaming platform Disney+. The series, a reimagining of the National Treasure franchise starring Nicholas Cage, will feature a Latina lead named Jess Morales.

According to a Deadline.com report, the series has been given the go-ahead by Disney+ with a 10-episode order. It will explore “the timely issues of identity, community, historical authorship and patriotism, told from the point of view of Jess Morales, a twenty-year-old DREAMer who, with her diverse group of friends, sets off on the adventure of a lifetime to uncover her mysterious family history and recover lost treasure”.

The series is being backed by franchise producer Jerry Bruckheimer and the film’s original writers Marianne and Cormac Wibberley. The Wibberleys will team up with Nair to tell new stories from Morales’s viewpoint.

The 2004 film, National Treasure, directed by Jon Turteltaub, featured Cage as Benjamin Gates, a historian and cryptologist, who hunts for the legendary treasure, with clues from the Declaration of Independence. A sequel, National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007), with much of the original cast and crew, was released three years later; another feature in the franchise is still under development as of last year.