Michael Mann has been giving an update on the planned Heat 2, and it’s beginning to sound that all is not too well.
Despite Heat 2 at one stage seeming like a sure thing, we’ve all seen productions fall apart at the last minute, even when everything seemed to be squared away. Plus, like its 1995 predecessor, the project is being set up at Warner Bros, a studio with perhaps the most fickle man in Hollywood in charge. David Zaslav, the boss of Warner Bros Discovery, isn’t afraid to delete films after they’ve been made, so projects that have yet to go before the camera must be on even shakier ground.
Working under such conditions would certainly make you a little cautious about your film ever seeing the inside of a cinema and that’s certainly the tone that Michael Mann is striking when it comes to public discourse about Heat 2. The film is of course his planned follow up to the crime drama that is considered to be one of the very best films of the 1990s.
When asked by Collider about the state of the movie, which was recently said to have suffered slight delays, Mann said that “Nothing’s definitely going [forward] because the sky may fall. But Heat 2 is at Warner Bros. I’m writing the screenplay for them, and hopefully, we will go forward as soon as possible.”
The filmmaker offered the outlet a little detail about the process of redrafting the script and coming from Mann, it was typically cinematic as he recounted being ‘kept awake’ by the screenplay before cruising the streets of LA only to land at Canter’s Deli, a touchstone LA location for him:
“Then I sat in a booth and wrote there until about 9 this morning, trying to finish act four. It was ironic because it’s the same booth I sat in when I wrote the first couple episodes of Starsky & Hutch back in the 1970s. Then The Jericho Mile and probably some early drafts of Heat.”
It has setting, characters, moments of beauty… and that’s just Michael Mann’s Tuesday night. We can only imagine how cinematic his take on Heat 2 would be, so hopefully any budgetary issues will soon be resolved, the script will be finalised and the film can get before cameras early next year.
Austin Butler and Adam Driver have been repeatedly linked to key roles but nothing has been publicly confirmed as of yet. Should the film take on the same form as Mann’s Hear 2 novel, expect it to be both a prequel and a sequel to his 1995 masterpiece. We’ll bring you more on this one as we hear it.
