Since the release of Michael Mann’s Heat 2 novel last year, the director has stated that he’d love to bring the story to the big screen. Recent rumors have suggested that Adam Driver, Austin Butler, and Al Pacino are involved in Heat 2, and a new rumor from scooper Daniel Richtman claims that Ana de Armas is being eyed to play the female lead.
The character is said to be named Elisa, the Mexican lover of Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) and partner in his scheme. Keep in mind that this is just a rumor, and Ana de Armas is not officially involved in Heat 2 at the moment.
Heat 2 takes place one day after the events of the original movie as it follows a wounded Chris Shiherlis (Val Kilmer) desperately trying to escape Los Angeles. The story flashes back and forth to events years before the heist and the years immediately following it. “It’s totally planned to be a movie,” said Michael Mann of Heat 2. “Is it a modest movie? No. Is it a very expensive series? No. It’s going to be one large movie.” It’s hard to imagine anyone else taking on the iconic roles of the original movie, but Michael Mann has said that audiences are ready for a new story in the Heat universe. “It’s sustained in culture. It’s known,” Mann said. “I could delude myself into thinking that the whole world is familiar with it, but when you check out its prominence in home video 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.“
Al Pacino already knows who should play the younger version of his character, LAPD detective Vincent Hanna. “Timothée Chalamet… He’s a wonderful actor,” Pacino said last year.
Here’s the official synopsis for the Heat 2 novel:
One day after the end of Heat, Chris Shiherlis (Val Kilmer) is holed up in Koreatown, wounded, half delirious, and desperately trying to escape LA. Hunting him is LAPD detective Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino). Hours earlier, Hanna killed Shiherlis’s brother in arms Neil McCauley (De Niro) 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.
Before Michael Mann potentially takes on Heat 2, he’ll be completing Ferrari, a biopic starring Adam Driver as Italian driver and entrepreneur Enzo Ferrari as he deals with family problems while preparing for the 1957 Mille Miglia. The film wrapped filming late last year and is expected to hit theaters in 2023.