Michael Mann Wants To Adapt His ‘Heat 2’ Novel Into “One Large Movie” & Would Recast With Younger Actors

The 1995 heist movie “Heat” is arguably one of the acclaimed entries in the cops-and-robbers genre of the last 30 years, if not longer. It’s a masterclass of how to construct a crime thriller with action elements, and director Michael Mann has been itching to revisit that world which led to him to co-write a prequel/sequel novel with Meg Gardiner that will be released in early August. But even with the novel on the way, a sequel film isn’t out of the question.

With that “Heat 2” novel on the horizon, Mann spoke with Empire Magazine and confirmed to the outlet that he’s not interested in turning the material into a television series or multiple films, but, instead, the filmmaker is interested in making it “one large movie.” 

“It’s totally planned to be a movie,” Mann explained. “Is it a modest movie? No. Is it a very expensive series? No. It’s going to be one large movie.”

READ MORE: ‘Heat 2’: Al Pacino Recommends Timothée Chalamet To Play His Younger Self In A Potential Sequel

Mann also admitted that due to the setting of the late-1980s and early-2000s it would mean that those key “Heat” characters originally played by Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, and Val Kilmer would be recast with younger actors. 

“I love those guys, but they’d have to be six years younger than they were in ‘Heat,’” he said.

Demand for a follow-up couldn’t be greater as “Heat” still does well with audiences discovering/rewatching on streaming services and, before that, on the home video/rental market. Mann is very much aware of the film’s impact on culture.

“It’s sustained in culture,” the filmmaker said. “It’s known. I could delude myself into thinking that the whole world is familiar with it, but when you check out its prominence in home vid for over 20 years, this thing really has legs. People are still watching it, people are still talking about it. It’s a brand. It’s kind of a ‘Heat’ universe, in a way. And that certainly justifies a very large ambitious movie.”

Here is the book’s official synopsis: 

One day after the end of Heat, Chris Shiherlis is holed up in Koreatown, wounded, half-delirious, and desperately trying to escape LA. Hunting him is LAPD detective Vincent Hanna. Hours earlier, Hanna killed Shiherlis’s brother in arms Neil McCauley in a gunfight under the strobe lights at the foot of an LAX runway. Now Hanna’s determined to capture or kill Shiherlis, the last survivor of McCauley’s crew, before he ghosts out of the city.

 In 1988, seven years earlier, McCauley, Shiherlis, and their highline crew are taking scores on the West Coast, the US-Mexican border, and now in Chicago. Driven, daring, they’re pulling in money and living vivid lives. And Chicago homicide detective Vincent Hanna—a man unreconciled with his history—is following his calling, the pursuit of armed and dangerous men into the dark and wild places, hunting an ultraviolent gang of home invaders. 

Meanwhile, the fallout from McCauley’s scores and Hanna’s pursuit cause unexpected repercussions in a parallel narrative, driving through the years following ‘Heat.’

Pacino recently said he wanted Timothée Chalamet to play a young version of Vicent Hanna, however, you’d likely need someone more in their 40s or early 50s to play Hanna given that Pacino was 55 when he shot the original. 

It’s all very exciting to see Mann willing to revisit this material and enthusiastic enough to make a sequel. He’s teased in the past about writing more “Heat” novels, although, unclear if those follow-up stories could end up being adapted into feature films too.