‘Heat 2’ is heating up, with Adam Driver possibly in the lead
Michael Mann has a great script, and Warner Bros. has its head all the way up it.
Deadline has reported that a deal is close for a follow-up to Mann’s 1995 sleek L.A. cops-and-robbers epic, “Heat.” The project is based on the novel “Heat 2” that he and Meg Gardiner published last summer. Moreover, it looks like Adam Driver is in talks to play the criminal mastermind Neil McCauley, who was played by Robert De Niro nearly 30 years ago. The “Marriage Story” and “Star Wars” actor is, indeed, about a decade younger than De Niro was at the time, but “Heat 2,” following the path of the book, is both a prequel and a sequel. The novel was a number one New York Times bestseller.
While Driver is the only “firm attachment” for the not-quite-greenlit project, as per the trade outlet, word is that Ana De Armas is rumored to play a love interest of the Driver character, and Al Pacino is keen to return for the role of Vincent Hannah for the current day storyline. (Online scuttlebutt has recent Best Actor nominee Austin Butler potentially playing the Val Kilmer role from the original.)
Driver and the 80-year-old Mann just wrapped production on “Ferrari,” based on the life of auto manufacturer Enzo Ferrari. It co-stars Penélope Cruz, Shailene Woodley, Sarah Gadon, and Jack O’Connell and is currently without a U.S. distributor following a restructuring at STX, the original production company.
“Heat” was a hit upon its release with a $187 million worldwide gross, but its stature has only grown in the decades since. (It received next to no awards recognition at the time at all, it’s kind of embarrassing in retrospect. The Chicago Film Critics Association threw it a few nominations, that’s about it.)
At the time of “Heat”’s debut, many made a great deal of (understandable) noise for finally seeing the twin titans of cinema De Niro and Pacino on screen together. Yes, they technically both were in “The Godfather Part II,” but (as with “Heat 2”!) that is a before-and-after story, and they were in different timelines. “Heat” got them across a diner table from one another, sending tough-guy movie lovers into ecstasy. The two would later make magic for Martin Scorsese in Netflix’s 10-time Oscar-nominated “The Irishman,” but history does tend to overlook something that came in between. Oh, how quickly we all worked to bury all memories of the unbearable dud “Righteous Kill,” Jon Avnet’s 2008 clunker that really is quite poor. Do not go back and rewatch that one, thinking it might be some buried treasure. You’ll walk out on that one in 30 seconds flat, even if you’re at home.
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