Nicolas Cage offered the lead in Treasure of Pompeii

Nicolas Cage has been offered the chance to star in family adventure Treasure of Pompeii .

The film isn't actually the third installment in Cage's National Treasure franchise, despite sounding quite similar.

Pompeii is described as being close to The Goonies in tone, with the plot centring on "some boys’ adventures in Pompeii, the dead Roman city near the Vesuvius volcano, while searching for a hidden treasure."

There's no word on what role Cage is up for, so he could be playing a concerned dad, a pesky villain, or something altogether different.

Hopefully the film will be closer to the boisterous adventuring of The Goonies than the forgettable code-cracking of the National Treasures .

Cage has a tendency to juggle generic fare with occasional bursts of offbeat manic genius: last year he was ace in Kick-Ass and Bad Lieutenant , but he also turned up in the underwhelming The Sorcerer's Apprentice .

This year he got off to a dodgy start with Season of the Witch , and he'll next be seen in Drive Angry 3D .

If Cage accepts the Treasure of Pompeii role, expect an official announcement very soon.

Matt Maytum
Editor, Total Film

I'm the Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the running of the mag, and generally obsessing over all things Nolan, Kubrick and Pixar. Over the past decade I've worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at 12DOVE, and you can often hear me nattering on the Inside Total Film podcast. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.