Michael Mann’s follow up to Heat is currently a novel set to be published in August 2022 – which serves as both a prequel and sequel to his 1995 thriller movie – in the vein of The Godfather Part II. But it will come as no surprise that Mann is already eyeing its movie potential.
Speaking exclusively to Empire, Mann said; “It’s totally planned to be a movie.” He’s aware that the movie will have to be epic in length and scope, and though he ventured into television with this year’s Tokyo Vice HBO series, he doesn’t see Heat 2 being on the small screen. “Is it a modest movie? No. Is it a very expensive series? No. It’s going to be one large movie.”
“It’s sustained in culture. 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,” Mann continued.
The novel focuses mainly on Vincent Hanna (Robert De Niro in the movie) and Chris Shiherlis (Val Kilmer) but they would not be able to reprise those roles. “I love those guys, but they’d have to be six years younger than they were in 1995’s Heat.”
“The ability to which you can deep-dive into the internal world is fascinating, and you can do that best in a novel. I try to evoke that experience in the films I make, to locate the audience within the internal world of a character. The novel form allows me an even greater arena,” Mann says of the decision to write the novel first.
Mann is considered one of the great neo-noir directors, with movies such as Thief, Manhunter, Collateral, and Miami Vice.
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