Michael Mann states that the script for Heat 2 is close to being complete

The news has been running for about a year that Michael Mann has been working on Heat 2 with rumors that his Ferrari star, Adam Driver, and Austin Butler are attached as a young McCauley and Shiherlis. Mann has stated 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.“

Mann was originally set on starting to film Heat 2 sometime this year. Deadline is now reporting that Mann said at the Red Sea Film Festival that the script is just now nearing completion. The director has confirmed, “We have to have it finished very soon,” and he jokingly added that he will continue working on it on “The plane ride back to Los Angeles.”

The 30th Anniversary of the crime drama is approaching and Mann speaks on why his L.A. tale that features a famous co-headline of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro is experiencing longevity with audiences. He stated, “It’s all in the writing. It’s a very, very architected, very complex screenplay. It’s not supposed to affect you as complex. It’s supposed to affect you by taking you on this ride. But the structure has buried within it a feud… you’re 100% invested in Neil McCauley/Robert De Niro escaping. You’re 100% invested in Al Pacino [Vincent Hanna] apprehending Neil McCauley at the same time.  That contradiction helps sustain the memory.”

Mann continues to state, “But we knew, to be honest, we knew the movie we were making, by the way I say myself, but also Bob, Al, Val Kilmer, Jon Voight, we knew what this movie was, and then the movie comes out, and it has some impact… then it’s sustained in memory, and it was in the top 10 or 20 films in the Warner Brothers catalog for years.”

Are you looking forward to Heat 2? Share your thoughts on this Michael Mann sequel by leaving a comment below.