Last August, the director was hesitant on the question. However, this weekend in London when the filmmaker attended the Deadline Contenders event, he gave a radically different speech.
Heat 2, here we go
When asked if the adaptation of the novel Heat 2, a novel he co-wrote with Meg Gardiner, would be his next screenplay, he replied: "Yes, it is my next directing."
The director would have acquired this conviction during the filming of his latest film, Ferrari. Earlier this year, a rumor suggested that if he directed Heat 2, Adam Driver would be seriously considered to play young Neil McCauley (the role Robert DeNiro played in the 1995 original). Mann, however, avoided answering the question of future casting by saying: “That it was way too early to talk about that.”
Recall of facts
As a reminder, Heat 2 (the novel) is a prequel and a sequel to the 1995 Heat. Its story takes place in two different temporalities, the first follows in the wake of Chris Shiherlis (role played in the 1995 film by Val Kilmer), as he tries to escape the LAPD and Detective Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino in the 1995 film). The second temporality takes us back to Chicago in 1988 when McCauley, Shiherlis and their team of robbers leave the West Coast to go and carry out robberies in Chicago.
