Michael Mann confirms plans for Heat sequel movie are already underway

Michael Mann will be releasing a follow-up novel to his acclaimed crime drama Heat next month, but the director wants to turn that sequel novel into a full-fledged movie.

Earlier this month, Michael Mann said that the Heat sequel novel was “totally planned” as a movie, and while speaking on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast (via The Playlist), Mann confirmed that work on the project is already underway. “This is a book, but it’s also going to be a very large movie,” Mann said. When Maron asked if work on the Heat sequel movie was already underway, Mann said, “Yes, I can’t talk about it, but yes.“

Heat 2 begins just 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. “I always wanted to explore the early lives of these guys,” Mann said. “Also, to find a way to bring the past into the present and the present being about 2002, seven years after the events of ‘Heat’ the movie.” Given that even the “present day” portion of the story takes place twenty years ago, it’s hard to imagine the original cast returning to their roles. When asked how he was going to cast the movie, Mann would only say, “In very large ways.” If and when those central characters are recast, Al Pacino already knows who should replace him. “Timothée Chalamet… He’s a wonderful actor,” Pacino said last month.

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.

Heat 2 will be released on August 9th. You can pre-order the book here and the new 4K Blu-ray of the original movie right here. Are you down for a Heat sequel movie?