Michael Mann's Heat is the gold standard of the crime genre, and after nearly three decades, we may finally be getting a sequel film. Mann is in negotiations to board the sequel film and eying one superstar to take over Robert De Niro's role from the 1995 film.
Heat may be nearly 30 years old, but a New York Times bestselling sequel novel — written by Mann and Meg Gardiner — was released last summer. The film has two narratives like The Godfather Part II and splits time between 1988, before the events of the first film, and 2000, continuing the stories of Vincent Hanna (played by an over-the-top Al Pacino at his best in the 1995 film) and Chris Shherlis (Val Kilmer).
Deadline reported on April 3 that Mann is in negotiations with Warner Bros. — who distributed the first film — to develop Heat 2 into a film. In addition, insiders added that Mann is eyeing the star of his upcoming Ferrari film, Adam Driver, to play a younger version of the character Robert De Niro portrayed in the first film, Neil McCauley (he's already got the facial hair!).
What will be tougher is finding someone to step into the role of Vincent Hanna. Assuming that the Heat 2 film follows Vincent's journey post-Heat, you have one of two options — recast Vincent or have Pacino return de-aged. In all honesty, not many actors can play a drugged-up cop quite the same way Pacino can — so maybe the latter is your best option.
Heat was significant for finally putting Pacino and De Niro face-to-face in a film. They're both in The Godfather Part II, but similarly to the Heat 2 novel, they play characters in different eras and never cross paths. The diner scene from Heat is iconic and features two of the best to ever do it. Heat 2, should Driver and Pacino be cast, would reunite them after they both appeared in House of Gucci together. However, they would obviously be unlikely to share scenes.
Driver recently wrapped on Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis and will also appear in Mann's Ferrari later this year. Since the recent Star Wars trilogy ended, Driver has been on a roll in independent films with roles in the musical Annette, Ridley Scott‘s The Last Duel and House of Gucci, Noah Bombauch's White Noise (after receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his role in Marriage Story), and was most recently seen fighting dinosaurs in 65.
We're still in the early stages of development for Heat 2, but the possibilities are very exciting for this project. Maybe we'll find out what caused Neil to live by his mindset, “Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.”
Follow Us
Subscribe