Nov 25 & 26 Nicholas Cage - Biography Channel
Nov 24 Jon Voight - Carson Daily
Nov 20 Ebert & Roeper review National Treasure & Alexander
Nov 19 & 20 Nicolas Cage - A&E Biography
Nov 18 E! Behind the Scenes: National Treasure, repeats on the weekend.
Nov 18 Jerry Bruckheimer - Early Show - CBS
Nov. 17, 18 History vs. Hollywood: National Treasure The History Channel
Nov 17 Nicolas Cage - Good Morning America - ABC
Nov 17 Nicolas Cage - Live With Regis and Kelly - ABC
Nov 16 Nicolas Cage - Late Show David Letterman - CBS
Nov 16 Jon Voight - The View - ABC
Nov 14 Nicolas Cage - Inside the Actors Studio - Bravo
Nov 13 Nicolas Cage - Entertainers - ABC syndicated
Nov 13 Jerry Bruckheimer - Dennis Miller - CNBC
Nov 10 & later On the Set: National Treasure - Starz Family, Starz
Nov 10 & 11 Christopher Plummer - UK Biography Channel
Nov 9 Jerry Bruckheimer - Jimmy Kimmel Live - ABC
Nov 9 Premiere on the entertainment news
Nov 8 Nicolas Cage - Tonight Show Jay Leno - NBC
Disney Channel has ongoing promos: Nicolas Cage "movie surfers"
Late Night TV Page
TV-Now Nicolas Cage
Yahoo TV
TV Guide
See Video page for some media files and links.

Bio from the

CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER (John Adams Gates) is recognized as one of the finest classical actors of his generation. He made his New York debut in 1954 and went on to star in many celebrated productions on Broadway and London’s West End. He became a leading actor at England’s National Theatre, The Royal Shakespeare Company and Canada’s Stratford Festival. More recently, his Broadway appearances include the award-winning “Barrymore,” in which he has also toured all over North America. Plummer has also written for the stage, television and the concert hall. In 1986, he was inducted into Theatre’s Hall of Fame.

As a veteran of over 80 motion pictures, his films include the Oscar®-winning “The Sound of Music,” as well as “The Man Who Would Be King,” “Waterloo,” “The Pink Panther,” “Silent Partner,” “Battle of Britain,” “The Fall of the Roman Empire,” “Murder By Decree,” “Somewhere in Time,” “Star Trek VI,” “Dragnet,” “Wolf,” “Dolores Claiborne,” “12 Monkeys,” “Wes Craven presents…Dracula 2000,” “The Insider,” “Nicholas Nickelby,” “Ararat,” “Cold Creek Manor” and Oliver Stone’s upcoming “Alexander the Great.”

In the past few years, Plummer has been lauded for his portrayals of TV journalist Mike Wallace in Disney’s award-winning film “The Insider,” for which Plummer won both the Los Angeles and Boston Critics Awards, and of F. Lee Bailey in NBC’s critically acclaimed TV movie “American Tragedy.”

Apart from numerous honors from the UK, USA, Austria and Canada, Plummer has won two Tony Awards, two Emmy® Awards, Britain’s Evening Standard Award, Canada’s Genie Award, plus many nominations. He has been made an Honorary Doctor of Arts from New York’s Julliard School, and in 1968, sanctioned by Queen Elizabeth, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada, his country’s highest honor.

The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures has tapped Jerry Bruckheimer to receive its 2004 Producer's Award, which will be bestowed at the NBR's annual gala Jan. 11 in Manhattan. Meantime, as awards season gets into gear, the New York Film Critics Circle has pegged Jan. 9 as the date for its annual awards dinner, to be held at the Big Apple's Roosevelt Hotel. Org will cast ballots for its 70th awards event Dec. 13 at the Muse Hotel.

Thelma Adams of Us Weekly has been tapped as vice chairman for the NYFCC and will hold the post throughout 2005.

Tipping her hand, Adams reckons that "at least nine performances will be strongly considered" in the actor category when the NYFCC votes next month.

The NBR will release its full list of 2004 winners Dec. 1.

Three years ago, the NBR -- a group whose members do not have commercial ties to the industry -- picked Bruckheimer's military drama "Black Hawk Down," helmed by Ridley ScottRidley Scott, as one of its top 10 films of 2001.

Said NBR prexy Annie Schulhof: "The organization is thrilled to be honoring (Bruckheimer) again. Whether engaged in large-scale action-adventure blockbusters or more intimate character-driven productions, the Bruckheimer signature guarantees a film of distinction."

Bruckheimer's credits include such diverse fare as "American Gigolo," "Flashdance" "Dangerous Minds," "The Rock," "Pearl Harbor" and "Pirates of the Caribbean."

Both groups' awards are considered to pave the way for Oscar contention.
Date in print: Tue., Nov. 9, 2004, Gotham

As Walt Disney Studios readies for its next two releases -- Pixar-animated "The Incredibles," set for release Nov. 5, and the live action film "National Treasure," arriving in theaters Nov. 19 -- it is setting two house records for the promotional efforts surrounding its films.

To launch "Treasure," Disney has amassed the largest war chest of promotional dollars in its history for a live-action film thanks to advertising giants Visa, Verizon Wireless and McDonald's as well as eight other partners expected to back the movie' s release with an estimated $160 million of marketing support.

And for the release of "Incredibles," the studio has put together its largest-ever promotional campaign for an animated film. SBC, McDonald's and Procter & Gamble are running national TV spots that feature custom animation, and a total of seven corporate partners are providing promotional support for the film valued at more than $200 million. Kellogg' s also will be running TV spots as part of its "Incredibles" promotion.

"These two great films represent the biggest promotional campaigns in our studio's history, for both animation and live action," said Oren Aviv, president of marketing at Buena Vista Pictures. "My promotions team has truly outdone themselves this time."

Aviv conceived the original idea for "Treasure" along with Charles Segars, an executive at the Fine Living cable network. They are both credited as executive producers on the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced film.

The respective $160 million and $200 million figures for the "Treasure" and "Incredibles" tie-ins reflect estimated overall promotional value, including paid media, gross impressions, online exposure, collateral materials, premiums, prizes, in-store displays, promotional packaging and direct mail.

Actual paid media from Disney' s promotional partners totals about $50 million for "Treasure" and $60 million for "Incredibles," sources close to Disney said.

"These films are opening within two weeks of each other, so I think it's a pretty powerful one-two punch for two great movies," said Brett Dicker, executive vp marketing at Buena Vista Pictures.

The "Incredibles" campaign tops the estimated $180 million in promotional support that was put behind "Finding Nemo," Disney/Pixar's blockbuster hit film last year. And the "Treasure" tie-ins dwarf the previous largest promotional campaign behind a live-action Disney movie -- the campaign for 1998's "Armageddon," which amounted to about $100 million.

For "Treasure," Visa is launching a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign Nov. 1, promoting both the film and its Year of Treasure sweepstakes, in which Visa cardholders are automatically entered to win the total amount of their 2004 Visa purchases every time they use their card in November and December.

A total of 25 winners will be randomly selected at the end of the promotion, which is being advertised on national television, in print, on radio, online, with signage in member banks and at select merchants and in statement inserts sent to more than 400 million Visa credit and debit cardholders in the United States.

Visa, which has an overall corporate alliance with Disney, also was integrated into a scene in the film as part of the deal. In the brief sequence, a cashier at the National Archives gift shop tells treasure hunter Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage), "We take Visa," when he says he doesn't have enough money to pay for what she mistakenly believes is a gift-shop replica of the actual Declaration of Independence that he is about to steal.

"It's a very cute and logical way for us to be part of the film, and that was important to both us and Disney," said Bob Pifke, senior vp marketing services at Visa USA.

Visa also is partnering with the American Automobile Assn. for an online instant win game as a supporting promotion for "National Treasure," with 9 million eDecoder plastic game cards that reveal prizes at www.Visa.com/treasure being handed out at member banks, AAA branches, college campuses and select movie-related events.

McDonald's, which has a 10-year corporate alliance with Disney, will be targeting young adults 17-24 with its campaign, advertising on television and in its restaurants. The details of the promotion were not yet available.

Verizon is hosting a "National Treasure" text-messaging sweepstakes, with a grand prize of $10,000 that will be promoted on TV, in print, online, in-store and in bill-insert advertising. Verizon cell phone customers can also pay to download two "Treasure" games and wallpaper to decorate their phone screens.

As part of a promotional deal with America Online, a 10-minute extended preview of "Treasure" debuted Tuesday across the AOL and Moviefone.com Web sites, including the AOL welcome screen. It will run for eight days on Moviefone and three days on most other AOL channels.

Other smaller-scale promotional partners include Get Fit Foods, which represents Washington apple shippers; Kodak's Ofoto online service, Northwest Airlines, TiVo, Dodge, NASCAR and the Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia tourism boards, which will be taking tourists on movie-themed treasure hunts.

For "Incredibles," SBC is offering free movie tickets for new customers who sign up for its broadband or satellite services. The promotion is being supported by two TV spots and a national print campaign advertising a sweepstakes offering the chance to win $10 million. The SBC promotion also involves online, outdoor, catalogue and direct-mail components as well as ads plastered on the sides of hundreds of SBC delivery trucks and on public transportation buses in 71 markets.

McDonald's is promoting the film with eight Happy Meal toys and a global advertising campaign, including TV, radio, print, online and in-store advertising.

The Procter & Gamble promotion involves 11 different brands and features two TV spots, print, radio, online and in-store advertising involving more than 30,000 supermarkets. The Kellogg's promotion involves multiple brands as well, with various games and premium offers as well as a licensed cereal called the Incredibles. Kellogg's also will be advertising the promotion across all media, including television.

Other partners include Safeway supermarkets, with an in-store and in-circular campaign, Samsung, with an online sweepstakes offer, and Toys "R" Us, with an in-store movie ticket promotion and a Mr. Incredibles car available exclusively at Toys "R" Us.

As Jerry Bruckheimer films go, this is not going to have the wide mass appeal of Pirates of the Caribbean, but it’s not offensive like Armageddon or Pearl Harbor, and quite entertaining. Nicholas Cage comes off as quite sympathetic as Benjamin Franklin Gates, the seventh in a line of archivists, treasure hunters and history buffs stretching back to a confidant of President Andrew Jackson. As a child, Ben was imbued by his grandfather (Christopher Plummer) with not only a love of American history, but a love of stories of knight quests, secreted treasures, maps, and clues hidden deep within the grooves of American history trivia. Ben’s father (Jon Voight) does not approve of his father encouraging such nonsense in his son, and his dialogue strangely reads like a non-Bruckheimer fan in the audience voicing his skepticism of the absurd plot to follow, but Ben nonetheless comes to believe his grandpa’s story about how the treasure discovered by the Knights Templar within the Great Pyramid in Giza, Egypt during the Crusades was hidden in America to keep it out of the hands of Britain.

30 years later, Ben and his partner Ian Howe (The Lord of the Rings’s Sean Bean) and comedic foil Riley (Justin Bartha) come to conclude that there may be an invisible map written on the back of the Declaration of Independence leading to the treasure, and when Ben refuses to go along with Ian’s plan to steal it, and the authorities refuse to listen to him, Ben is forced to foil Ian’s crime, and ends up with the stolen document himself, with Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger from Troy), the beautiful archivist in charge of the National Archives (because naturally, archivists working at the National Archives tend to be such lookers) dragged into the chase against her will. With FBI agent Harvey Keitel on their trail, Ben and his partner Riley (Justin Bartha), along with Abigail, race to find the treasure before Ian.

What follows is a series of chase scenes as the treasure hunters find and search for clues leading them from one historic place to another across three different states, clues that are steeped in the minutiae of American history lore (I have no idea of any of these points is based in historical fact, but in a movie like this, it hardly matters), with Jon Voight again providing the sole voice of reason as he questions whether these clues are just an endless series of arrows pointing to other clues rather than to any real destination. The action isn’t too implausible, the characters are likable, and the movie is just plain fun. The planning and machinations that the film supposes on the part of the Founding Fathers seems wildly implausible, but it doesn’t matter. This is a Jerry Bruckheimer film, and one of the better ones. It’s take on history may be fluff, but at least it endeavors an interest in it as a prerequisite for the plot, and a medium through which the audience may think to themselves, “Ooh, I didn’t know that about Benjamin Franklin.” If you’re an expert in history bothered by the mistakes or flaws about Liberty Bell, or the Masons, or the hidden secrets on our currency, or who just plain doesn’t buy the technological sophistication required for some of the artifacts uncovered by the characters, then perhaps you’re watching it for the wrong reasons. If you don’t know one way or the other, then it doesn’t really matter. This is a popcorn film, a modern day Indiana Jones-type film, and if you know anything about Jerry Bruckheimer, you should know going in what you’re getting.

Bruckheimer was in attendance last night (as was Harvey Keitel), and gave the brief speech before the movie began (which is not usually the case outside of premieres—this was just a press screening), and right before leaving when the closing credits started, I complimented him, saying it was very entertaining.

If you like to sit back and have fun, I recommend it.

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 18 - When the Walt Disney Company's "National Treasure" arrives in theaters on Nov. 19, it will tell the story of an adventurer, played by Nicolas Cage, on a hunt for riches, with clues hidden in pieces of Americana, like the back of the Declaration of Independence and the weird images on a dollar bill.

Mr. Cage's mission is not unlike that of Disney, which hopes "National Treasure" will help crack the code for a new, edgier kind of family entertainment that is meant to become the hallmark of its cherished Walt Disney Pictures brand. Previous Walt Disney films typically relied on youths on screen, as in "Heavyweights," "Freaky Friday" and "The Princess Diaries."

So far, "National Treasure," a big-budget film directed by Jon Turteltaub, has had a relatively low profile among a welter of holiday releases that will include Warner Brothers' "Polar Express" and Disney's "Incredibles," from its animation partner, Pixar. But that is about to change, as the studio unleashes the kind of promotional push clearly meant to polish a family jewel, the Disney brand.

On Tuesday, the company will take the unusual step of unveiling 10 minutes of "National Treasure" scenes on America Online. What the company is calling its largest-ever campaign of promotional tie-ins will follow. The campaign for the film, which is being produced by Mr. Turteltaub and Jerry Bruckheimer, past master of R-rated romps like "Bad Boys" and "The Rock," will involve McDonald's, Verizon, Visa, Kodak, Dodge and Nascar.

Disney executives say the drive is about more than selling "National Treasure," though they are eager to do that. The goal is to "open up more and more possibilities for what makes a Disney movie," said Nina Jacobson, president of Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group, part of the Disney Company.

Rated PG, the new film is the next big step in a strategy that was described only weeks ago to investors by the company's president and chief operating officer, Robert A. Iger. He said the strategy was crucial to Disney's future in live-action films.

The studio faltered this year with costly and darker flops like "The Alamo" and "Hidalgo," both from its Touchstone imprint. Now the company, based in Burbank, Calif., is planning to focus more on live-action films from the Walt Disney label, less brutal movies like Mr. Bruckheimer's surprise 2003 hit "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" and the fantasy epic "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," which is expected late next year.

The incentives are clear. Films rated PG and PG-13 (parental guidance suggested and parents strongly cautioned) drew 75 percent to 90 percent of the domestic box office, compared with 10 percent or less for G-rated, or family, films, among the 20 highest-grossing movies for each of the last four years, according to the Motion Picture Association of America.

"It's the sweet spot," said Robert Marich, author of "Marketing to Moviegoers: A Handbook of Strategies Used by Major Studios and Independents," a book to be published next year by Focal Press.

Some competitors believe Disney is well on its way to mastering the more expansive approach that will characterize the separate Walt Disney brand. "We emulate Disney," said Terry Curtin, head of marketing and distribution for Revolution Studios. "They're certainly not emulating us."

Ms. Curtin, who said the industry buzz on "National Treasure" was strong, said her company's holiday entry, "Christmas With the Kranks," was meant to imitate the emerging Disney formula. That movie's main characters are played by two actors, Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis, who were turned into family film stars by Disney. And the film was directed by Joe Roth, a partner in Revolution who was previously chairman of Walt Disney Studios.

Some observers warn that Disney may dilute its appeal if it stretches too far in becoming identified with stars like Mr. Cage, who made his mark with distinctly adult performances in "Leaving Las Vegas" and other films.

"If they make a lot of movies that should have been rated R but sneak in under the PG-13 banner, then they could hurt their brand," said James Steyer, founder and chief executive of Commonsense Media, a nonprofit children's advocacy organization that publishes family film reviews at www.commonsensemedia.org.

Mr. Steyer said he believed that Disney would hold the line, and Disney executives said they had no intention of breaking faith with their core audience. Ms. Jacobson said, "It's all about moving from the conventional definition of a family film to the more sophisticated idea of a general audience film that is appropriate for a family audience."

With "National Treasure," Mr. Bruckheimer has emerged as a clear, if unlikely, point man for Disney's new family line, a business he stumbled into when he set out to make an R-rated football movie but wound up with the PG-13 hit "Remember the Titans," which was released in 2000. That film was backed by the Disney Studios chairman, Richard Cook, after competitors vetoed the tougher version.

"I was an unwilling participant initially," Mr. Bruckheimer said by phone from Louisiana State University, between bites of a late lunch last week. He was in Baton Rouge shooting Disney's "Glory Road," which he described as the story of a coach who changed basketball in 1966.

Mr. Bruckheimer said the only films on his production schedule were PG and PG-13, though he has some R-rated ones "in the hopper." He agreed to produce "National Treasure" only two and a half years ago, about six years after it was conceived around an idea from a Disney marketing executive, Oren Aviv, and Mr. Aviv's friend, Charles Segars, an executive previously at CBS and now at the Fine Living cable network. It was developed with a string of writers and Mr. Turteltaub, who is known less for action films than for strong character portrayals in films like Disney's "Kid," with Bruce Willis.

If Mr. Bruckheimer, the impresario behind more risqué 1980's fare like "American Gigolo" and "Beverly Hills Cop," has softened somewhat as Disney has become more intense, one thing has not changed.

Only days ago, the stubble-bearded producer - known for laserlike attention to detail and for tinkering that goes down to the wire - was still putting finishing touches on "National Treasure." His director was in an editing bay at his Santa Monica, Calif., offices.

"You'll have to excuse me," Mr. Turteltaub told a visitor, turning back to his work. "If I don't get going, we won't have a movie at all."

I just saw this movie at a preview screening in Long Beach, California. They told us we were the first people in the world to see the movie. Jerry Bruckheimer was actually in attendance. If you don't believe me you can read the synopsis I am about to post and apologize in November.

MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD!

The movie starts off with Benjamin Franklin Gates as a boy, probably about 10-13. He's creeping through an attic, searching for some unknown object. He finds some sort of big book thing. Before he can look through it, his grandpa catches him. Benjamin says he just wants to know the secret, and his grandpa decides to tell him. He tells a story about a certain Declaration of Independence signee whose name escapes me at the moment. Anyway this guy was the last living signee at the time, and he knew he was dying, so he requested an audience with the President, but when he got to the White House the president was gone. He wanted to tell the President the legend of the Knights Templar finding a boatload of treasure beneath Solomon's temple and bringing it to the New World, that is, America. He is the keeper of the last clue that points you on the way to the treasure, which is passsed down through his family, the clue is "The treasure is beneath the Charlotte". Benjamin asks his grandpa what the Charlotte is. His grandpa says even the signee didn't know that..

Then Benjamin's dad walks in and notices grandpa telling Benjamin that story. He thinks it is BS and doesn't believe it, and sends Benjamin to bed. Benjamin wants to become a knight and find the treasure someday.

Fast forward 30+ years, Nicholas Cage as an adult Benjamin and three others are searching the (ant?)arctic in snow vehicles with some GPS leading them to the location of the Charlotte, which is apparently a ship that got frozen in the ice. They find the ship and go inside. They get into the cargo hold but the barrells are full of gun powder, no treasure. Except one barrel has a box in it. They open the box and it has a pipe in it. The end of the pipe is an exquisitly carved little sculpture. Benjamin seperates the pipe from the sculpture. The part of the pipe that was in the sculpture bears an inscription. Benjamin cuts himself and smothers his blood all over the inscription, then rolls it on a blank piece of paper. It's some sort of obscure riddle that Benjamin deduces means the next clue is hidden in invisible ink on the back of the Declaration of Independence. One of Benjamin's comrades, Ian, who is apparently the moneyman behind their treasure hunting expeditions wants to steal the D.O.I so they can look at the back. Benjamin says no. Ian gets pissed and holds Ben at gunpoint. There's a big standoff that leads to Ian and one of the other guys running off from Benjamin and Riley (the last person in the group)

Fast forward a few days, Ben and Riley go to the FBI to try and warn them that someone is going to steal the Declaration, and are laughed out of the office, so Ben and Riley go to the office that handles the preservation of the ancient documents(D.O.I, Constitution etc.) The person that runs happens to be an extremely hot woman named Abigail. They tell her their suspicions and ask to examine the Declaration themselves, but she doesnt believe them either.

So Ben and Riley decide to steal the Declaration thesmelves in in order to protect in from Ian. They concoct this really elaborate (totally unbelievable of course) for stealing it that involves doing it some special gala night when a special dinner is taking place(so security is more lax), using a laser pointer to set off the heat sensors around the Declaration display case, which will get it moved to the preservation room in the basement where Ben can go get it while Riley disables the security cameras. Ben gets down there and gets it, but wouldn't you know it, Ian has decided to steal it on the same night and is down there too. Ben is able to make it to the elevator with the Declaration. He gets up to ground level and for some reason ends up in the gift shop. The lady working there sees the document tucked in his coat pocket and thinks he is trying to steal one of the replicas they sell. So he pays for it(35 bucks) with a credit card.

Then he goes outside where Riley is waiting in a van for them to leave in. The hot babe I mentioned ealrier sees Ben and thinks he looks suspicious so she follows him. When she gets to the van and sees Ben holding the scroll she remembers what he said earlier. At this same time the security inside has realized what has happened and sound the alarm. Abigail realizes that Ben has stolen the Declaration and starts screaming for security. He gives her the scroll and decides to run for it. She runs across the street but Ian and his goons capture her and drive off in their big blue van. Ben wants to save her so him and Riley chase them in their red van. After a long car case Ben saves her but Ian got the scroll. But wait, turns out Ben bought a replica from the store after all("I thought it would be good to have a duplicate") and thats the one Ian has. The real one is safely stored in Ben's van. Abigail is pissed and wants them to return it.

Ben decides to go to his dad's house since the police are now on a mad search for him(they had the security camera footage of him from the gift shop and since he paid with a credit card they know where he lives and stuff)

So they get to his dad's house and tell him they are there about the treasure but don't tell him about the Declaration obviously. He doesnt care since he thinks the treasure is BS. So Ben, Riley, and Abigail put the Declaration on a table and put lemon juice on the back and breathe on it and the Freemason symbol appears. Then they coat the entire back in lemon juice and a number of ciphers appear. They are in this format "#-##-#". Ben concludes that this refers to Silence Dogood letters(something to do with the obscure riddle at the very beginning) which are a series of letters that Benjamin Franklin wrote to his local newspaper under an alias. They head off to the Benjamin Franklin museum to look at them. The cipher refers to:the # of the letter-which # line in that letter-which # letter in that line". Riley goes to the museum and recuits a little boy to go in the museum for him and write down the letters(he gives him four ciphers at a time) and bring them back to him. Eventually it is down to the last four letters. As the little boy figures out the last four letters, Ian(who somehow found out about the Silence Dogood letters. Sorry I can't remember how. I didn't really pay attention to the whole Silence Dogood thing at first because I didn't understand it) notices the little boy counting to get the letters. So when the little boy leaves to give the last letters to Riley, Ian follows him. But while the little boy was getting them, Riley figured out the last four for himself so he left to go tell Ben and Abigail the deciphered cipher. In essence it says this:

The next clue is pointed to by the shadow of the house of the liberty bell at a certain time, but it doesn't say what time. Ben takes out a 100 dollar bill and looks at the time on the Independence Hall on the back of it, which is 2:22, but it's 3:00, so they missed it. But then Riley mentions that daylight savings time didn't exist until World War 1, so now it would actually be 3:22, so they head off for Independence Hall and climb into the steeple and look at the shadow. Ben climbs out of the steeple and goes to where the shadow ends. It is a brick with the masonic logo on it. Ben cuts the brick out of the wall. The brick is hollow with an opening on the back, and there is a strange set of glasses inside. Ben takes them.

By this time Ian has figured out the next clue is at the Liberty Bell (he talked to the little boy. The little boy said he didn't have any of the letters anymore except for the last four, which was Stow. Ian runs a search on Google for Stow and Liberty Bell is the top result. I'm notjoking)

Ben meets up with Riley and Abigail and looks at the back of the Declaration with the special glasses. There is a crucifix and a message "Heere at the Wall", along with the sign of the Trinity About this time they look out a window and see that Ian is on their trail. They split up. Ben takes the glasses, Abigail and Riley take Declaration. Ian and his goons split up and chase them. There is a long chase scene. Ben evades his chaser and heads for the meeting spot. But Riley and Abigail aren't so lucky. Their chaser catches them and takes the Declaration. As Ben waits around for them the police see him and arrest him.

Ben is taken to a big room and he tells the chief investigator dude his story. He doesn't quite believe it. As the chief interrogates Ben he starts playing around with the glasses. Ben realizes that there are multpile lenses and that he didn't see the whole picture on the back of the Declaration.

Ben's cell phone rings. The police chief answers it and tries to set up a trace. It is Ian. Ben talks to him and lets it known that he has been arrested. Ian tells Ben and the FBI agents that if they want the Declaration back for Ben to meet him alone at some dock in New York.

Ben goes there and is wired and bugged etc. so that he is in constant contact with the FBI. They have dozens of agents just mulling around the dock ready to strike on Ian when he shows up. Ian predicts this so he sets up this whole disturbance with a helicopter and jams the FBI's signal to Ben. He calls Ben on his phone and tells him to jump off the dock. Ben does this and the FBI chief is pissed, not knowing Ben is following instructions from Ian. As Ben submerges there are some men in scuba gear waiting for him. They swim all the way to the other side of the Hudson, the New Jersey side. There Ben finds out from Ian that Abigail actually set that up, because she was able to convince Ian that if Ben was in custody neither of them would ever find the treasure. But there's one catch, in exchange for his help she had to make Ian believe they would share the treasure. She has also figured out what "Heere at the Wall" means. Turns out back in the days of the founding fathers Broadway street was called Heere. So they go to the corner of Broadway and Wall. Ben tells Ian that's all the clues there are. Ian doesn't believe Ben and then reveals to Ben that he has Ben's dad hostage. So Ben is forced to tell Ian there are more clues. They go into Trinity church church on the corner since the sign of the Trinity was on the Declaration.

Ben, Ian, Ian's goons, Abigail, Riley, and Ben's dad sit on the pew. Ben looks at the back of the declaration again, this time flipping the special lenses on the glasses. Turns out the whole message is "Heere at the wall, below Parkington Lane". So they all go into the basement and find the crypt of some guy named Parkington Lane. They open up his crypt and crawl in there. There's a secret passageway that leads to a huge underground fault, a cylindrical room with a seemingly bottomless pit, and an old wooden elevator system. They all get on the elevator and there's a long, gratutious, boring scene where the elevator collapses and Abigail and Ben almost fall off etc etc. Everyone ends up safe except for one of Ian's goons and then they take the still working elevator to the bottom of the pit. There's a passageway into a litte room. The room is empty except for a lantern. Ben says that the treasure is gone and this is a dead-end. Ian then quickly runs back to the elevator and raises it a bit so that Ben, Abigail, Riley, and Ben's dad can't get on. He thinks Ben is lying and asks him to reveal the next clue. They make up some long story about a church in boston, and the lantern having to do with paul bunyan and the church in boston and thats where the treasure is. Ian buys it and leaves them stranded.

Now they are trapped thousands and thousnads of feet below earth and everyone is scared. Then Ben finds a secret button, he pushes it and another door opens, supposedly to the treasure room. They go in and it's...empty. Ben concludes that the treasure really is gone and his dad gives a really lame long speech about the importance of finding the room anyway. Suddenly Ben notices a strangely shaped socket. He pulls out the intricate carving from the pipe at the very begginning of the movie and it fits perfectly. Then he turns it and ANOTHER door opens. They go in it and......its an absolutely gargantuan room filled to the brim with treasure!!!!!!!!!!!

After they oogle at all the treasure they get back to ground level using the secret staircase in the treasure room. When they get back to the church the FBI chief is waiting for them. Ben hands him the Declaration and tells him he found the treasure. Ben makes a deal with the FBI chief to keep him out of jail. All of the treasure will be donated to museums around the world. He also tips off the FBI chief about Ian and his goons at the church in Boston. The police find them and arrest them

Fast forward a few days.

Ben is oogling at the Constitution in it's display case. Abigail walks up and asks him if he thinks it has a secret on the back too. He says no but that he would like to check anyway. They laugh and Ben, Abigail, Riley, and Ben's dad walk out of the display room and the movie's over.
---------------------

After the movie was over they gave us a big survey sheet telling us to list our favorite scenes and least favorite scenes and rate the actors performances etc. etc.

Overall I give the movie an 8/10. It dragged on a bit towards the end, especially in the elevator scene. Many people in the theatre did not like it so perhaps it will be removed on theatrical release. Here's hoping!

If you have any questions just reply or PM me!

Nicolas Cage is holding on for dear life to a creaky wooden board that's about to give way and drop him down a deadly shaft. And producer Jerry Bruckheimer couldn't be happier.

"I love these kind of scenes," Bruckheimer says on the set of his latest movie, National Treasure, in theaters Nov. 24. "It's kind of old-fashioned action."

Old-fashioned has been treating Bruckheimer well these days. The producer ignored warnings that the pirate genre is dead when he gave the green light to Pirates of the Caribbean. That film, starring Johnny Depp, snatched $305.4 million last year, the third-biggest haul of 2003.

Enter Treasure, the story of a family that has spent decades hunting for a war chest hidden by the Founding Fathers after the Revolutionary War. The film also stars Sean Bean, Harvey Keitel and Christopher Plummer.

Bruckheimer, director Jon Turteltaub and the screenwriters spent months researching the film to infuse it with real-life characters and historical events. "There's a lot in here about the Founding Fathers and the Declaration of Independence to give it authenticity," Bruckheimer says, before catching himself with a grin. "But it's still a lot of fun."

Turteltaub talk: With the New Year's first holiday, Martin Luther King weekend, already history, Hollywood's looking forward to the really big boxoffice bumps linked to Memorial Day, July Fourth and Thanksgiving.

While Thanksgiving seems far off, it's very real these days at Disney's Touchstone Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films where the action adventure "National Treasure" is now in production and looms as a potential Thanksgiving blockbuster when it opens Nov. 24. Directed by Jon Turteltaub and starring Nicolas Cage, "Treasure" is produced by Bruckheimer (whose "Pirates of the Caribbean" grossed over $305 million domestically via Buena Vista/Disney) and Turteltaub. Also starring are Justin Bartha, Diane Kruger, Sean Bean, Harvey Keitel, Jon Voight, Christopher Plummer, Don McManus and Mark Pellegrino.

"Treasure's" story revolves around Benjamin Franklin Gates (Cage), an eighth generation archaeologist-historian searching for treasure buried by America's founding fathers. Gates discovers a map leading to the treasure has been hidden for 200 years on the reverse side of the Declaration of Independence. Unfortunately, Gates isn't the only one who knows about the map. He ends up having to steal the Declaration to protect it from villains so desperate to unearth the money they'd destroy the priceless document to get it.

An extensive list of prominent writers worked in various combinations on "Treasure's" screenplay over a period of years, including Jim Kouf, Marianne Wibberly, Cormac Wibberly, Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio. The film's executive producers are Mike Stenson, Chad Oman, Barry Waldman, Christina Steinberg, Oren Aviv and Charles Segars.

Focusing recently on "Treasure" with Turteltaub, whose credits include four Disney hits -- "While You Were Sleeping," "Phenomenon," "Cool Runnings" and "3 Ninjas" -- I observed that when I talk to filmmakers who've already wrapped production they've usually forgotten many of the challenges they had to deal with at the time. "You're right, when you look back you tend to forget all the bad and remember only the good," he told me. "When you're in it, you're only aware of the bad. You don't even notice the good."

In the case of "Treasure," Turteltaub pointed out, "Like any movie, it's filled with all the kinds of production challenges that you're dealing with. It's a huge movie. We're dealing with five different cities. We're dealing with historical landmarks and sensitive locations because of security reasons and post-9/11 worries. But that contains also a thrill. As difficult as it is to get permission and to deal with things like shooting in and around the National Archives or inside Independence Hall in Philadelphia, once you work it all out and you get in there you realize you're standing in the belfry where the Liberty Bell once stood. It gets exciting at that point."

Besides Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia, he said, the production's other locations are "New York, L.A. and somewhere that looks like the Arctic (and as we were speaking) it's probably going to be Utah. We started shooting in September (and should finish in late January) and it has been extraordinarily complicated to shoot -- everything from just the scope of what we're trying to do to having to delay shooting a week because at 40 years old I got the chickenpox. We have had what turned out to be the huge privilege of shooting in D.C. and in Philadelphia at historic places. We've reconstructed the rotunda for the National Archives on a stage at Disney, which is just a gorgeous and extraordinary set. They didn't feel comfortable (at the National Archives) having a film crew two feet from the actual Declaration of Independence. And I have to say I can't blame them because I don't want to be the guy who spilled his coffee on it."

With the actual Declaration not available, a replica was created for the movie. "Probably the best thing about being a director -- after the ability to talk to girls at parties -- is that you become an expert in something with every movie you make," Turteltaub said. "You learn about bob sledding or you learn about gorillas or you learn about American history. The amount of research we did into the actual Declaration of Independence, itself, became so fascinating and so (much) fun for us in finding things out that not only I never knew but that the public doesn't even know (like) if you look carefully at the front of it there's a handprint of somebody's greasy hand that was placed on the document at one point.

"Written on the back it says, 'The original Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.' What a crazy thing to write on the back on the Declaration of Independence, but it's written there because they used it for cataloguing and things like that. So when we had to recreate our own because they weren't so happy to give us theirs, you have to find out all these tiny details to get it right. To me one of the indications of the success of this movie will be when people go visit the real Declaration of Independence at the National Archives in Washington and they get an extra thrill because it's what they saw in the movie. Sometimes things become more real having seen them on TV or in the movies (than when) they just see them on their own. If we can make people more excited about these real artifacts and places in American history, then we'll have a successful movie."

Focusing on the film's treasure hunt story, he said, "It's fun. What happens when your map is more valuable than your treasure? As rich as it is in history and as big as it is in terms of (being) an adventure movie, the movie also plays as a comedy, as well. Nic is extremely funny in the film. There's a lot of comedy in it. I knew I was hired for a reason. I think with the success Jerry had with 'Pirates' it became pretty clear that you can make movies that appeal to adults and kids at the same time (and) that can be romantic and humorous and have action all at once."

Production began in Washington, D.C., Turteltaub explained, "because we needed to start on locations before fall happened and the leaves changed. So it's one of those things where nature's dictating a shooting schedule. We began by shooting sequences on the streets of D.C. Our first night was beginning with Nic Cage walking out of the National Archives having stolen the Declaration of Independence. It's pretty exciting to be standing on locations with the Capitol glowing behind you and the really glorious strength of D.C. It's a beautiful city. We leapt in with night shooting and action. A lot of movies think you've got to start slowly, but at this point in everyone's career the crews are so experienced and the cast is so experienced you can start in the middle and everyone's okay." As a result, filming was able to begin with a key sequence in the film.

When I asked Turteltaub to tell me about what I assumed were long days in production, he replied, "Long days are not as bad as long nights. We started by working a lot of long nights. Surprisingly, Washington, D.C. is a ghost town at 9 o'clock at night, but it gets really busy at 6 o'clock in the morning. We had a lot of night shooting. We began there and just crammed as much in as we could into as many nights as we could. The city is beautiful at night, but it's still complicated. Absolutely everything is complicated right now in Washington, D.C. Yet, if you have good production people they manage to make things work.

"We started working on this project six or seven years ago and sequences that were written pre-9/11 don't work now. It's not as easy to have a car chase in front of the White House as it was six years ago. The entire security system for the National Archives has been updated so what was accurate in the script three years ago had to be completely rewritten to be what's accurate in the script for reality right now."

Asked how the project came about, Turteltaub explained, "A very close friend of mine, Oren Aviv (Buena Vista Pictures marketing president) and a creative partner of his had the original idea for the movie. I've known Oren forever. He had a great idea for something to do with the Declaration of Independence and a theft and all of that stuff. So we started developing the idea within my production company at Disney and got it to the point where we had a pretty good script, but it wasn't ready to be made. Sometimes you just know a movie's not quite ready to go. The project was also so much huger than anything I had done with the scale of it and the amount of action in it. Jerry Bruckheimer had read the script and liked it. And I thought, well, 'I'd be an idiot not to have a partner like Jerry on this movie.' So Jerry and I decided to do it together.

"We've basically been developing it and writing script after script to get it right. I've never had a project that was as tricky and as complicated and as difficult to crack as this because we're dealing with reality and truth and mystery and historical accuracy. Trying to keep things accurate and entertaining at the same time is tough. I learned the importance of doing it when I did 'From the Earth to the Moon' for Tom Hanks," he said, recalling HBO's award winning 10-part 1998 mini-series about America's conquest of the moon. Turteltaub directed episode seven "That's All There Is" about the crew of Apollo 12, receiving a Directors Guild of America nomination for outstanding directorial achievement in movies for television.

Working on that mini-series, he noted, "gave me a sense of integrity with history when telling a (story that is) fiction. When you add to it anytime you're writing a mystery and a caper, you have to be very careful with the details of your story. On top of which, when you're dealing with an action film and an adventure film and a treasure hunt, you have a lot of cliches you get to embrace, but more so you have cliches you need to avoid. The biggest problem we ran into, really, in some ways was that 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' is one of the most perfect movies ever made. So how do you not do something perfect? You have to keep looking for something different. Yet everything they did was so good, it's so far to avoid it. So it just took a lot of time to keep finding newer innovative ways of doing things that hadn't been done."

When Turteltaub and I spoke he was preparing to shoot scenes at Knott's Berry Park in Buena Park, Calif. just south of Los Angeles. "By odd luck, they have a perfect replica of Independence Hall," he said. "Who knew? So rather than fly for five hours we get to drive for five hours and shoot in that building where we don't upset the Parks Dept. or the thousands of tourists that go to Independence Hall a day. And we don't have to worry that if we drop something we might break Ben Franklin's chair. We did some interiors and all the exteriors in Philadelphia, but we're going to go down to Knott's Berry Park to grab a whole bunch of interiors. After that, we'll be on stages at Disney and Universal...and then we'll go out to Utah (for the Arctic scenes) and New York.

"You know, with all these locations not one of them was Canada. The movie, itself, is about historical accuracy. Nic Cage is a treasure hunter with a great amount of knowledge of American history. It felt really wrong on an artistic level, a creative level, to start faking Canada for the United States. You will not see Toronto for New York in this movie."

How difficult was it to get Cage to star in "Treasure?" "I think like any smart actor he didn't just jump in without questions and without meetings and without curiosity about the tone, the style and all the elements we'd need," Turteltaub answered. "That being said, he has a great track record with Jerry (including such hits as 'The Rock,' 'Con Air' and 'Gone in Sixty Seconds") and I've known Nic for 20 years. We were all instantly comfortable with each other. So it was sort of an easy match for everybody. We all kind of knew this was the right thing for all of us right away."

Of course, when "Treasure's" big action scenes were filmed in Washington, special attention had to be paid to making sure no one confused the movie action with real-life. "We did have to be careful with the action sequences to make sure people knew this wasn't a real gun fight happening at any of these locations," he said. "Especially when you're in Washington, D.C., if you start firing guns on the street they want to know exactly what's happening."

Not surprisingly, the filmmakers were a magnet for tourists. "We shot on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and there were about 500 tourists there, all of whom came to see one of the greatest presidents who's ever lived -- and all 500 of them were watching Nicolas Cage the whole time. Lincoln got absolutely no attention."

Having climbed the Lincoln Memorial's steep steps myself, I asked Turteltaub how they managed to get all the heavy filmmaking equipment they needed up there. "One of the things I really respected about the Parks Department -- it's the Department of the Interior -- (is that) we were allowed to shoot on the steps, but only so far. We were not allowed to film in and around the Memorial next to Lincoln. They want to preserve the sacred nature of the location (so) that there is something of a conceptual hallowed ground to it. What it ended up doing (is) after we got over our initial Hollywood ego of, 'How dare they tell us we can't shoot there? Don't they know we're big shot Hollywood people?' it actually gave us respect and a sense of awe for where we were, which translated into the performances and the actors and how we shot and how we behaved.

"We also shot in the Library of Congress, which very few people have been to. I can say it may be one of the most extraordinary interiors of any building I've ever seen. It's stunning. No one goes and it is extraordinary. But when you're shooting in something that beautiful, you become aware of the gravity of what you're doing, which really worked well for the movie."

Needless to say, all of this doesn't come cheaply. Asked what he thinks "Treasure" will cost in ballpark numbers, Turteltaub joked, "$70 billion -- but with video, we'll be fine! You know what? The number is always less than you need, but more than you can believe. It's a lot. I remember when 'True Lies' came out. I think it was the first movie to cost over $100 million. There was an enormous amount of controversy over it and Arnold Schwarzenegger said, 'What are people getting so upset about? If we want to spend $100 million to entertain you, shouldn't you be happy?' So as we approached that number, my feeling is, 'Look what an effort we're making to make a good movie.'"

As with any movie, a lot of what's being spent is being paid as salaries to a long list of cast and crew members and was pumped into the local economies where filming took place. "And you know with Jerry the money ends up on the screen," Turteltaub pointed out. "He is extraordinary with pushing to make sure (those dollars are on the screen). One of the reasons I wanted to work with Jerry is that he wouldn't ever allow me to not make a good movie. He does everything in his power to make sure he makes the best movie he can make. That's all you ever want from a producer."

Martin Grove is seen Mondays at 9:30 a.m., PT on CNN FN's "The Biz" and is heard weekdays at 1:55 p.m. on KNX 1070 AM in Los Angeles.

Jerry Bruckheimer doesn't look like the most successful producer in the annals of movies, aiming to become the most successful producer in the annals of television.

Laid-back, soft-spoken and introspective, the unassuming guy in black Polartec is, in fact, a wiry multitasker famous for booming, muscular crowd-pleasers such as Top Gun, Armageddon and Pirates of the Caribbean.

He's also the engine that drives the highest-rated series on TV, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, as well as its sister, CSI: Miami (both on CBS), and Fox's sexy new contender, Skin.

"Not a half-dozen men have been able to keep the whole equation of [moviemaking] in their head," F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in The Last Tycoon. Bruckheimer can solve quadratic equations in his sleep. If he does sleep.

On a recent afternoon, when the maple leaves have turned the shade of Society Hill's brick rowhouses, Bruckheimer is at Headhouse Square on the set of National Treasure, an action-comedy starring Nicolas Cage as an archaeologist who finds a treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence.

The producer has arranged two chairs so he can be interviewed while his ice-blue eyes track Cage - whom he transformed into an action star with Con Air and The Rock - getting arrested outside Cafe Nola by FBI agent Harvey Keitel.

Periodically, Bruckheimer's cell phone vibrates. He discreetly takes a call from Ireland, where his epic King Arthur, with Clive Owen and Pirates' Keira Knightley, is shooting. Other calls concern several of his six TV shows - which also include Without a Trace, expected to pass ER in the ratings this season, and Cold Case.

The filmmaker answers succinctly, attentive to both the action on the set and his guest. Gone in 60 Seconds isn't only another Bruckheimer-Cage production, it's an apt description of his phone dispatch.
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The king of Hollywood, crowned by Entertainment Weekly this month in its annual power-broker rankings, has a bolt of lightning as his production company's logo. It's a fitting choice for one whose lightning-paced films have accelerated the tempo of American movies. Before 1980, the average shot in a mainstream film lasted eight to 11 seconds, according to film scholar David Bordwell. The shots in Top Gun, in 1986, clocked in at three to four seconds. In1998's Armageddon, they were two to three seconds. Bruckheimer leaves the viewer breathless.

His releases this year - Kangaroo Jack, Bad Boys II, Pirates and Veronica Guerin - have earned more than $500 million in the United States and Canada. Altogether, his 33 movies have grossed $12 billion worldwide.

He favors five-word sentences. Of his age, he says, he's "somewhere between Jagger and Eminem. Closer to Jagger." Most references list him as 58.

His taste in plots runs toward contrasts, the preposterous twinned with the pleasurable, the aspirational with the inspirational. Flashdance: Welder-by-day, exotic-dancer-by-night (Jennifer Beals) pines to be ballerina. Remember the Titans: African American high school football coach (Denzel Washington) successfully fields integrated team.

"Right now, Jerry Bruckheimer is one of the few movie producers whose name has become a brand, others being Lucas and Spielberg," says Tom Pollock, a movie producer and former chief of Universal Pictures.

Buy a ticket to a Bruckheimer film and you know what you'll get: a protagonist scaling his personal Everest, escalating velocity, pop music, overdrive velocity, atmospheric cinematography, warp-speed velocity. Bruckheimer is like Maverick, the Tom Cruise character in Top Gun, whose mantra is "I have a need, a need for speed."

Movie critics kvetched that Bruckheimer's early films were the end of cinema as they knew it. The filmmaker did come to Hollywood in 1972 off a successful career as an advertising art director.

Yet Jeanine Basinger, historian and chair of film studies at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, gives him credit: He may have been the first filmmaker to understand how swiftly audiences can assimilate images and their meaning.

"Bruckheimer movies are the opposite of what his critics say. They're not mindless - they engage a different part of the mind," says Basinger, who counts among her former pupils Michael Bay, director of The Rock, Armageddon, Bad Boys, Pearl Harbor, and Bad Boys II.

On TV, the Bruckheimer brand generally connotes cool people in hot places (think CSI: Miami) or hot people in cool places (think Cold Case, about a comely Philadelphia detective investigating long-unsolved crimes), all contemplating criminal psychology.

"Whether I've got 30 seconds, 60 seconds or 90 minutes, the approach is still the same," Bruckheimer says. "I need very clear storytelling." The goal is "to take you on a ride."

"I went into TV for the speed," he says. On the small screen, an idea can go from conception to delivery within months. And a series permits the producer to delve into character more deeply than he can in film.

"In movies, when you have character exposition that doesn't advance the plot, it gets cut." On TV, he says, "you can develop characters over 23 episodes."

When his longtime producing partner, Don Simpson, died in 1996, some predicted that Bruckheimer was finished. Simpson was regarded as the unstable genius, Bruckheimer the expediter.

"With Don around, who was more voluble than Jerry, Jerry never got credit for anything creative," Pollock says. "It must be gratifying for him to come into his own as a creative force."
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Most producers are in it for the money, the status, the toys. Bruckheimer loves the rush.

"I work seven days a week," says the filmmaker, who has homes in West Los Angeles and Kentucky, home state of his novelist-wife Linda. Between postproduction on Bad Boys II and Pirates of the Caribbean, visiting the sets of National Treasure (due out late next year) and King Arthur, and accompanying Veronica Guerin to film festivals, Bruckheimer estimates that he's spent a total of three weeks in L.A. since June.

He's dressed in an unpretentious North Face windbreaker and jeans. Lunch is being ordered from Jim's Steaks. In his book bag are Walter Isaacson's Benjamin Franklin, Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, and Bob Woodward's Bush at War. He prefers not to comment on Variety's characterization of him as a staunch Republican.

The producer of Top Gun, Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down frequently uses military language to describe his job: "It's always the same battle," says Bruckheimer, who is known for commissioning multiple rewrites of projects. "You talk about the script, and ways of improving the script."

Like a general, he believes it's critical to visit the troops. "My job on the set is to boost morale," he says after huddling with National Treasure director Jon Turteltaub and Cage, one of many edgy actors he has made into action heroes, frequently over studio protests.

"They wanted Arsenio [Hall] for Bad Boys; I fought for Will Smith," says Bruckheimer, who made the Fresh Prince a movie star with that 1995 feature. "They wanted [Sylvester] Stallone for Beverly Hills Cop; I fought for Eddie Murphy."

Of his 1980 breakthrough, American Gigolo, Bruckheimer says, "Once [John] Travolta dropped out from the project, the studios wanted Chris Reeve. I fought for Richard Gere."

As Bruckheimer tells it, his greatest casting coup was getting Disney to accept Johnny Depp for Pirates of the Caribbean: "Johnny's body of work tells you it isn't a Disney movie. He signals something different."

Thanks to Bruckheimer, the eccentric actor famous for giving amazing performances that few people have seen was turned into a bona fide movie star.

Those who complain that the producer makes testosterone-fueled movies about worlds where women are marginal are partially right. Of his 33 features, Veronica Guerin, Flashdance, Dangerous Minds and Coyote Ugly are the only actress-driven vehicles.

His series tell a different story. Most boast fully realized female leads. There's Marg Helgenberger in CSI, Emily Procter in CSI: Miami, Kathryn Morris in Cold Case, and Rachael Leigh Cook in Fearless, expected to debut midseason. Bruckheimer has a theory why television affords more gender equality.

"In features, once you get turned down by Julia [Roberts] or Halle [Berry], you can't get a movie made." TV, he says, is less star- than character-driven.

Bruckheimer is process-oriented and, from all reports, nonconfrontational: Colleagues don't fear his outbursts as much as his silences. He describes his favorite time on a movie as postproduction. He likes editing a film to fighting trim, and he lives for test screenings. (Only by seeing a movie with civilians, Bruckheimer says, does he know if it works.) When he goes to the movies for pleasure, which is every weekend, it's to the multiplex, not the screening room.

"Jerry's a regular guy. He thinks like the audience thinks. It sounds simple, but it's not." This is the judgment of Ron Meyer, president and chief executive officer of Universal Studios, and about the only person in Hollywood not currently in business with the prolific Bruckheimer.

In contrast to Meyer - who, like many in the industry, was born in Los Angeles - Bruckheimer hails from Detroit. His passion for hockey, which he plays regularly ("as a forward, because I can't skate backward"), is a byproduct of his youth in the Motor City.

Another byproduct: "I'm a strong believer in the American way of life, despite its flaws," says the only child of German immigrants, whose patriotic idealism was the driving force behind Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down.

Like many first-generation Americans, the overachieving psychology major had skeptical parents. "I was a failure in my mother's eyes because I wasn't a doctor or a lawyer."

And now?

Bruckheimer thinks of his 98-year-old mother and grins. "She's overwhelmed."

Despite the fact that his name tops Hollywood's "most powerful" lists, despite the fact that he'll probably earn $75 million this year, despite the fact that everyone wants to be in business with him, Bruckheimer admits that he still has an Everest to climb.

He'd like to direct? No, not that one.

"I'd like to be a better hockey player."