8 Nicolas Cage Movies That Could Have Become Franchises

Published Sep 30, 2026, 11:30 AM EDT

Sky Blanton is a Movie Contributor at ScreenRant with professional experience covering movies, television, and pop culture. Her published work spans news, interviews, features, and opinion pieces, with a focus on film, franchise storytelling, and the entertainment industry.

She earned her bachelor's degree in Communications with a concentration in Professional Writing and a minor in Business Writing from Southern New Hampshire University.

Nicolas Cage has saved San Francisco from chemical weapons, stolen the Declaration of Independence, escaped from hell, and stolen more cars than most movie characters will ever see. Somehow, all of that has resulted in remarkably few recurring Nicolas Cage roles. For an actor who spent years bouncing between action movies, fantasy, thrillers, and huge studio productions, Cage has rarely stuck with one character for very long.

A lot of those characters didn't necessarily need to disappear after one movie, either. Some had entire careers that could have produced another story, while others ended their movies in worlds that clearly had more going on beyond the problem Cage had just solved. A few nearly did come back, with sequels discussed or developed before falling apart. Cage's tendency to jump immediately into something completely different only makes those abandoned possibilities more noticeable.

The best candidates aren't just Nicolas Cage movies that would have been fun to see get a sequel. Each one gave him a character, job, or situation that could have supported a genuinely different story the next time around. Benjamin Gates came closest, returning for National Treasure: Book of Secrets before the movie series stalled after only two installments. For most of the other characters here, that second movie never came at all.

8 Face/Off (1997)

Face/Off didn't exactly make it easy to bring Castor Troy back. Sean Archer kills him with a speargun at the end, while Archer gets his own face restored and returns home to his family. Still, the movie made more than $245 million worldwide, and the face-swapping technology leaves plenty of room for another story. If the FBI can surgically turn Archer into Troy once, there's no reason that technology has to disappear with him.

Paramount apparently still sees something there. A sequel has been in development since 2019, with Adam Wingard joining in 2021 to direct and co-write a continuation that could have brought Nicolas Cage and John Travolta back. Nearly 30 years after the original, it still hasn't happened. Wingard left the project in 2026, and Paramount began looking for another director. Whatever Face/Off 2 eventually becomes, the fact that the studio is still trying this many years later says plenty about how easily one movie could have become more.

7 Con Air (1997)

Cameron Poe finally gets home to his wife and daughter at the end of Con Air, so another hijacked prison flight would have been a pretty cruel way to bring him back. Still, the movie didn't need to repeat the exact same trip. Poe is a former Army Ranger who survived a plane full of violent inmates, helped take back the aircraft, and then chased Cyrus Grissom through Las Vegas. It wouldn't be difficult to imagine another situation where those skills become useful.

Director Simon West has certainly imagined a few. In an interview with ScreenGeek, he said in 2025 that he would return for Con Air 2 if Cage was involved and they found the right script, preferably with as many original cast members as possible. His ideas haven't exactly been restrained, either. West has floated everything from super-powered convicts to taking the sequel underwater, into space, or even into a parallel universe. After only one flight, Con Air could apparently have gone just about anywhere.

6 The Rock (1996)

Stanley Goodspeed starts The Rock as an FBI chemist who has barely fired a gun, then spends the movie disarming VX rockets and trying to keep San Francisco from being wiped out. By the time he leaves Alcatraz, he's already a very different character. His job as a chemical weapons specialist could have sent him into another crisis, but the movie actually leaves him with an even better reason to come back.

Goodspeed ends the movie with Mason's microfilm containing decades of government secrets, and Michael Bay already had an idea for what happened next. His proposed sequel would have had the government come after Goodspeed for possessing the information, forcing him to go on the run and seek Mason's help. It also would have shifted The Rock from another military action movie into more of a conspiracy thriller. Goodspeed wouldn't need another Alcatraz. The first movie had already handed him the problem for a sequel before the credits rolled.

5 Gone in 60 Seconds (2000)

Memphis Raines is already retired when Gone in 60 Seconds forces him back behind the wheel. To save Kip, he has to reunite his old crew and steal 50 specific cars in a single night, turning Memphis into the guy capable of organizing a car theft that should be impossible. That could have easily become the formula for more movies, with a new list, a new deadline, and a new reason Memphis needs Sway, Otto, Sphinx, and the rest of the crew.

Instead, Memphis never got another job. There hasn't been a sequel to the 2000 movie, although a fake 2024 poster claiming Cage would return for Gone in 60 Nanoseconds fooled enough people that Snopes had to debunk it. The made-up plot even imagined an older Memphis coming out of retirement again to recover stolen vintage cars. That's obviously not a real sequel, but it's easy to picture because Gone in 60 Seconds already had the crew and heist structure to keep going.

4 National Treasure (2004)

National Treasure is the one movie here that actually proved Nicolas Cage could carry a franchise. Benjamin Gates returned in Book of Secrets, but the sequel didn't send him after another clue hidden on the Declaration of Independence. It built a completely different hunt around John Wilkes Booth's diary, the president's secret book, Mount Rushmore, and the lost city of Cíbola. That showed exactly how easily the series could reset for another adventure without repeating itself.

American history gives Gates an almost endless supply of places to look. A new movie only needs a disputed historical event, missing artifact, secret document, or legend for Gates, Riley Poole, and Abigail Chase to start connecting clues across museums, monuments, archives, and landmarks. Even Book of Secrets plants another mystery with Page 47 of the president's book. After nearly 20 years, that potential may finally pay off. Reported by People in August 2026, director Jon Turteltaub said National Treasure 3 was “finally real,” with a script he likes and Cage expected back as Gates.

3 Next (2007)

Cris Johnson can normally see only two minutes into his own future, which is enough to dodge punches, avoid bullets, and know exactly how a conversation is about to go. Then he meets Liz. For reasons Cris doesn't understand, being around her lets him see much farther ahead, and the FBI wants to use that ability to find a nuclear bomb before terrorists detonate it in Los Angeles. That concept already gives Next an easy way to keep sending Cris into situations where knowing the future could save thousands of people.

The ending makes that possibility even more likely. The entire assault on the terrorists turns out to be one of Cris' visions, allowing him to realize their plan will fail before it actually happens. He wakes up beside Liz, calls FBI agent Callie Ferris, and agrees to help find the bomb for real. Next literally ends with Cris heading off on another version of the mission, now knowing more about what his power can do. A sequel barely needed a setup because the first movie had already provided one.

2 The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010)

The Sorcerer's Apprentice gives Nicolas Cage a character who had already been fighting evil for more than a thousand years. Balthazar Blake spent centuries searching for the Prime Merlinian and hunting the Morganians who followed Morgana, which means defeating her hardly had to exhaust his history. Dave becoming the Prime Merlinian also changes their relationship. Balthazar finally finds the sorcerer he was looking for, but Dave has only just learned how to use that power.

That could have turned the series into Balthazar and Dave taking on different magical threats tied to Merlin's world, with Cage's experienced sorcerer training Dave as he gradually became his equal. The post-credits scene even shows someone who appears to be Horvath retrieving his hat, leaving an obvious villain available to return. Instead, the movie stopped there. Its roughly $215 million worldwide gross wasn't enough to turn Disney's expensive fantasy into the franchise its ending seemed prepared to continue (via IMDB).

1 Drive Angry (2011)

Drive Angry already ends with John Milton proving that Hell has a recurring escape problem. After saving his granddaughter and killing Jonah King, Milton returns to the underworld with the Accountant, but makes it pretty clear he doesn't intend to stay there forever. That alone could have supported another supernatural road trip, but director Patrick Lussier and co-writer Todd Farmer actually had a much bigger idea for where Milton would go next.

According to SyFy.com, their unmade sequel would have killed the Devil with the God Killer, the same supernatural weapon Milton uses in the first movie. With Hell's “warden” gone, damned souls would begin escaping in what Lussier described as a massive prison riot. Milton and the Accountant would then become partners, hunting down the escapees responsible for Lucifer's murder before Hell completely fell apart. That premise could have blown Drive Angry open into a series about Milton handling increasingly bizarre problems spilling out of Hell.

Unfortunately, the first movie made only around $40 million against its nearly $50 million budget, killing the sequel before Cage ever got to avenge the Devil.