After yesterday’s huge news that Michael Mann‘s gestating “Heat 2” would be moving from Warner Bros. over to Amazon MGM Studios/United Artists, another interesting tidbit has squeaked out as Oscar-winner Leonardo DiCaprio (“One Battle After Another”) is said to be circling the part of Chris Shiherlis (the only surviving member of Neil McCauley’s crew from the 1995 film), played by the late Val Kilmer in the original pic.
Both Deadline and Entertainment Weekly are making that casting claim, although we don’t have confirmations that DiCaprio has signed any sort of deal. That latter element also goes for other actors in the mix for roles, such as Adam Driver, Austin Butler, and the newly mentioned Bradley Cooper.
If you’re not familiar with “Heat,” it was the feature film remake of Mann’s TV movie “L.A. Takedown” (aired on NBC in 1989 but was originally meant to be a series pilot) that focuses on an intense but professional crew of thieves that get on the radar of the Major Crimes Unit in the Los Angeles Police Department when a brazen daytime armored car heist goes south with the guards being murdered, after they enlist the help of a trigger-happy serial killer (ends up selling them out to other gangsters) for the job.
One could envision DiCaprio playing the post-L.A. version of Shihlerlis, a thief/marksman with a rather debilitating gambling addiction who ends up going on the run from authorities. At the same time, Butler may potentially inhabit the younger version of the character.
We’re still a little in the dark about how this feature adaptation of the recent “Heat 2” novel (co-written by Mann and Meg Gardiner, as with the film’s script) will stick to that source material, as the story bounces around various decades and locations. In theory, considering the different decades covered, we could have two different actors playing a key role, like Shiherlis, unless Mann is trying to stick with a single era.
Stay tuned, as with this new studio change-up, we’ll likely see the official casting announcements for “Heat 2” in the very near future.
