- Michael Mann has confirmed the Heat 2 script has been submitted
- Adam Driver and Austin Butler linked to major roles
- Novel was a New York Times Bestseller in 2022
We are closer than ever to Heat 2 becoming a reality. Michael Mann has now confirmed his hotly anticipated follow up to 1995’s sprawling Los Angeles masterpiece has a script and it is with Warner Bros.
While this does not serve as confirmation that the project has been officially greenlit, it does suggest that such an announcement isn’t too far away, either.
“I just finished the screenplay and handed in the first draft. In this case it was Warner Brothers,” Mann explained in a recent Q&A with Vulture. “Any more than that, I can’t talk about. But it’s an exciting project.”
This year celebrates the 30th anniversary of the original, which has long been hailed as one of the greatest crime thrillers ever committed to the silver screen. Rolling Stone ranked Heat as the 28th best film of the 1990’s.The film marked the first on-screen interaction between Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. The Oscar winning duo had both starred in The Godfather II, but never shared screen time. The coffee shop scene in Heat is now regarded as one of the most mesmeric few minutes in cinema history.
Although Mann has said he cannot give anything else away about Heat 2, the script is based on the novel of the same name that Mann co-wrote with Meg Gardiner in 2022. The book became a New York Times Bestseller and serves as a prequel and sequel to the 1995 original.
So what do we know about Mann’s globehopping prequel/sequel? Here’s every bit of information at our disposal so far…
What is the Plot of Heat 2?
As previously mentioned, Heat 2 is both a prequel and sequel to the first film. The novel begins in the immediate aftermath of the bank heist committed by Robert De Niro’s Neil McCauley and his crew. With McCauley and Michael Cherrito now dead, killed by Al Pacino’s LAPD Detective Vincent Hanna, Chris Shiherlis is smuggled across the Mexican border with the help of Nate (played by Jon Voight in the 1995 film) to begin a new life in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay. Once in Paraguay, Chris begins working security for a Taiwanese-Paraguayan Liu crime family, run by David Liu.
Hanna’s arc, meanwhile, begins in 1988 in Chicago, with him resigning after a brutal shootout with a home invasion gang led by the psychotic Otis Wardell. Wardell flees as the sole survivor of his gang and serves as the antagonist of the story, coming up against Neil and his outfit in Mexicali and then against Hanna in Los Angeles in 2000, bringing their story full circle after Hanna initially pursued Wardell in Chicago in the late 1980s.
McCauley, Cheritto and Shiherlis, meanwhile, are given more backstory, committing skillful robberies in Chicago before planning to raid a cartel stash house in Mexicali. Trejo (played by Danny Trejo in Heat) is also present as part of the group. Shiherlis’ initial meeting with his future wife Charlene, in Las Vegas, is also documented as part of the prequel portion of the novel.
In its entirety, the story traverses the globe, from LA, Vegas and Chicago in the United States, to Mexicali in Mexico, Ciudad del Este in Paraguay and Batam in Indonesia.
When is the Film’s Release Date?
As of yet, Heat 2 does not have a release date. Mann has only submitted the first draft of his screenplay to Warner Bros. The project is not yet greenlit, though it is expected to be this year. A late 2026 release looks most likely at this moment in time.
Who is in the Heat 2 Cast?
While no cast members have been attached to the project yet, Adam Driver has been tipped to take on the role of Vincent Hanna, with Austin Butler and Ana de Armas linked to the roles of Chris and Charlene Shiherlis, respectively.
