Heat 2, the high-profile Michael Mann follow-up to his 1995 crime drama classic, is getting a new home, ensuring that the ambitious and buzzy feature project will be getting made after all.
United Artists, the Amazon MGM Studios division, is in talks to pick up the project from Warner Bros., after the latter let the movie be shopped in August after not being able to agree with Mann on a budget. Hollywood vets Jerry Bruckheimer, known for high-octane action thrillers and the Top Gun movies, and Scott Stuber, who previously ran film for Netflix and is tied to UA, have boarded the project as producers. Mann and Stuber’s partner Nick Nesbitt are also producing.
The crime thriller is coming with plenty of, um, Hollywood heat, as a bevy of A-listers have been mentioned in connection with the project. With Leonardo DiCaprio circling, other actors whose names have surfaced include Austin Butler, Adam Driver, Bradley Cooper, among others. However, no offers have been made to that talent, let alone any actor deals signed.
Mann’s Heat starred Al Pacino as a hardened Los Angeles cop named Vincent Hanna who, ignoring his deteriorating personal life, is obsessed with tracking down career criminal Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro), who wants to pull off one last heist before retiring. The cast also included Val Kilmer, Ashley Judd, Amy Brenneman, Tom Sizemore and Jon Voight, among others. The movie proved to have a lasting impact over filmmakers and pop culture, building a legacy over the decades as a cinematic classic.
A sequel to Heat began a slow burn when Mann released the 2022 crime novel Heat 2, co-written with author Meg Gardiner, which became a No. 1 New York Times bestseller.
Acting as both a prequel and a sequel, the sprawling Heat 2 story is set in several timelines. One follows a younger McCauley and his crew pulling off daring heists and living the high life. Another tells of what happened to Shihirlis, the lovelorn thief played by Kilmer in the 1995 movie, in the aftermath of the first movie’s climactic robbery, and his multi-year quest to reunite with his former girlfriend (who was played by Judd in the original). One part of the book is set in a lawless South American drug zone. And there is also an overarching bad guy more brutal than anything seen in the first movie, a murderer and rapist named Otis Wardell.
Mann and Warners spent considerable time trying to come to an agreement on a budget, several sources said. The initial budget proposal came in at $230 million, according to one source. Mann eventually whittled it down to $170 million. Warners was ready to make it for $135 million or $140 million. Alternately, according to sources, it was willing to push the budget up to $150 million if Mann would commit to not only a Heat 2 but a Heat 3.
UA would not comment on the budget. Eric Roth, who co-wrote Mann’s 1999 drama The Insider, and Shane Salerno, who was instrumental in the book deal, are executive producing.
One of the issues facing any studio that picked up the project is Mann’s reputation for blowing past his budgets, hence the desire by some companies of trying to set strict guard rails. Another issue is the multi-decade time period and locations, which range from Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and South America. Finally, there is the massive cast of characters, and the big name actors Mann wants. No one is officially on board, although Mann is said to have been meeting with actors for months and this is the kind of movie project that actors of all stripes want to be part of.
“Everyone you can think of has met on this,” said one source.
Even after looking for possible production partners, Warners decided that the project was too financially risky and in August decided to let Mann shop it. While some studios and companies sat out of the competition, Heat 2 became a fight in the trenches among Amazon’s UA, Paramount, and Sony, according to insiders, as the studios wanted to have a chance to make what could turn out to be another crime classic.