Trivia for
National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007) More at IMDbPro »

• Because of her role in The Queen (2006), Helen Mirren was invited to meet Queen Elizabeth II, but couldn't make the meeting because she was in South Dakota filming this movie.
  
  
• Director of photography Amir M. Mokri was replaced by John Schwartzman several months into shooting. This was reportedly due to "creative differences" between Mokri and director Jon Turteltaub.
  
  
• The name on a realty sign in the background of one of the scenes is Segars' Realty. A reference to one of the film's executive producers Charles Segars.
  
  
• Release prints were delivered to theaters with the fake title 'Cinnamon'.
  
  
• Patrick Gates makes a reference to FDR during World War Two. Jon Voight played Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Pearl Harbor (2001).
  
  
• Randy Travis shot his cameo in one day at 1 A.M.
  
  
• For the theatrical release, the film was called "National Treasure: Book of Secrets," but for the DVD release, the title was changed to "National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets."
  
  
• In the Booth diary the remaining part of the page after the words Thomas Gates Artifex (artifex: Latin) adj., skilled, masterful) is the word Aenigmatum, or enigma. The two Latin words brought together mean one who is skilled in puzzles.
  
  
• As stated in the commentary, experts were brought in to match President Lincoln, Queen Victoria and President Coolidge's handwriting.
  
  
• The script originally called for Mitch Wilkinson to stab Patrick Gates in the scene where they escape from the flooding gold city. This was taken out in post because it made the character "cross a line" that the director felt ought not be crossed. This is why there are almost no shots of Patrick Gates remaining in this scene: he was bleeding, and that's hard to hide. On a side note, the sweater he was wearing in the next scene had been ripped from the stabbing, and they were able to "unrip" his shirt with CG.
  
  
• The code seen in Booth's Diary is an actual text encoded with Playfair method using the keyword DEATH. The complete text says: "La Boulaye lady will lead to Cibola temples of gold".
  
  
• The man who has his Range Rover stolen by Mitch Wilkinson is costumer Hans Georg Struhar. His cameo is also an in-joke: his Humvee was stolen in The Rock (1996) as well, a film also produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and also starring Nicolas Cage and Ed Harris.
  
  
• 'Bruce Greenwood', who played the President, previously played President John F Kennedy in the movie Thirteen Days (2000).
  
  
• 'Nicholas Cage' has won an Academy Award (for Leaving Las Vegas (1995)), and the actor and actress who played his parents (Jon Voight and Helen Mirren) are also Academy Award winners (for Coming Home (1978) and The Queen (2006), respectively).
  
  
• In The Rock (1996), 'Nicholas Cage''s character is given information that leads him to a hidden roll of microfilm containing government secrets, including information about the Kennedy assassination (just as the "Book of Secrets" contains). Ed Harris plays the villain in both films.
  
  
• This is the second movie in which 'Nicholas Cage' sees proof of some of America's greatest conspiracy theories, such as Area 51 and the John F. Kennedy assassination. The other was The Rock (1996). Coincidently, the main antagonist in both films is played by Ed Harris.
  
  
• The area of the Library of Congress that Gates finds the Book of Secrets in does not exist as an area of book shelves. These book shelves were constructed as a prop library in a previously empty balcony of the Library's Main Reading Room and dismantled after the scenes were shot.
  
  
• The document briefly seen in Riley's book is an autopsy report for Marilyn Monroe.
  
  
• In the second scene with Agent Sadusky and his two agents, Agent Sadusky can be seen wearing crossed US and Marine Corps flags on his lapel.
  
  
• The night before the scenes at the University of Maryland were to be filmed a half inch of snow fell. The crew then had to use fire hoses to hose down the entire McKeldin Mall and nearby locations to melt the snow for continuity in the movie.
  
  
• When showing the map of the grounds to the President, Ben tells him it belonged to a slave of Washington's named Charlotte. This is the same name as in the clue to the Templar treasure that Charles Carroll gave to Gates' ancestor (and which turned out to be the name of a ship). Presumably Mt. Vernon was one of many dead ends which Ben pursued in his search for Charlotte and the Templar treasure prior to the events of the first movie, which would explain why he knew about the hidden compartment and how it worked, or it might just be a sly reference to the first movie.
  
  

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