This year\u2019s Lumi\u00e8re Festival<\/strong><\/a> in Lyon took its final bow with a screening of Michael Mann\u2019s epic crime drama Heat. And what a way to cap off this year\u2019s 17th edition, which feted the American director with its honorary Lumi\u00e8re Award<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n The 1995 movie, starring Al Pacino as detective Vincent Hanna and Robert De Niro as criminal Neil McCauley, is considered one of Mann\u2019s greatest. And a sequel is on the way<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re in the middle of negotiations and it looks like it will go forward sometime in the summer of 2026,\u201d shared the 82-year-old director during the festival.<\/p>\n Heat 2 is already a novel written by Mann and Meg Gardiner. It was published in 2022, and serves as both a prequel and a sequel to Heat.<\/p>\n Little has been officially confirmed regarding the film and its cast, with rumours suggesting that Adam Driver may be in line to play a young McCauley and Leonardo DiCaprio could be in early talks to portray Chris Shiherlis, a role played by the late Val Kilmer<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Mann did not confirm whether 85-year-old Pacino will reprise his role as surviving cop Hanna but did give journalists some more information regarding the sequel during a press conference this weekend.<\/p>\n Michael Mann and this year’s Prix Lumi\u00e8re <\/span> – Pierre Assemat – Euronews Culture <\/span><\/p>\n Asked why he was keen to revisit the characters of Heat, especially since Mann has never done a sequel to one of his films, the director revealed it was due to his deep connection with the characters.<\/p>\n \u201cThe characters of ‘Heat’ are so alive to me that I know everything about outside the boundaries of the film. I know what De Niro\u2019s character looked like when he was state raised as an 11-year-old, wearing clothes that didn\u2019t match, being ostracized, which then made him aggressive and violent, which led to juvenile facilities,\u201d said the director.<\/p>\n \u201cI know everything about these characters. I always wanted to do more with these people, but I couldn\u2019t figure out how to do it because one\u2019s dead at the end of ‘Heat’,\u201d he revealed. \u201cThen the idea occurred to me based on the rapport between the two adversaries, Pacino\u2019s Hanna and De Niro\u2019s McCauley, about how to do both before the events of ‘Heat’ and after.\u201d<\/p>\n Mann confirmed that Heat 2 would jump across timelines, exploring both before and after the events of the original film.<\/p>\n \u201cIt starts one day after 1995 and only Val Kilmer is alive, and he has to flee the United States,\u201d Mann revealed. \u201cAnd then it goes seven years earlier. It’s 1988, and Hanna is a detective in Chicago, not Los Angeles. And in 1988, Hanna and McCauley are not the same people they are in 1995. It\u2019s the events of 1988 which then turned them into the characters of 1995.\u201d<\/p>\n He elaborated: \u201cFor example, McCauley, who has an idea of no attachment… Have nothing in your life that you can\u2019t walk away from in 30 seconds flat. In 1988, he has a wife and a stepdaughter. He has a nuclear family that is very attached to him.\u201d<\/p>\n Michael Mann in Lyon, signing copies of Heat 2 <\/span> – Ricardo Figueira – Euronews Culture <\/span><\/p>\n Mann talked briefly about experimenting with AI and seemed to confirm that digital de-aging tools will play a role in Heat 2.<\/p>\n \u201cI don’t experiment with technology gratuitously. When I have a dramatic or aesthetic need for it, then I go deep into what I need. So, for example, aging and de-aging may be very important in the next film.\u201d<\/p>\n Considering how de-aging technology went down in Martin Scorsese\u2019s The Irishman and in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny<\/strong><\/a>, this could be controversial. Still, in Mann we want to trust.<\/p>\n The director confimed his hopes to begin filming in Summer 2026, with a view to releasing Heat 2 in 2027. He also addressed the studio switch from Warner Bros. to Amazon MGM, as Mann could not reach an agreement with Warner regarding the project\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n “Heat 2 is an expensive movie to make, but I believe it should be made at the proper size and scale. It\u2019s going to shoot in Chicago, Los Angeles, Paraguay, and possibly some parts in Singapore.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf it was at a low, low price, I could have made it anywhere. But it\u2019s complex. I can\u2019t get into all the politics of it, but we moved from Warner Brothers to Amazon and United Artists.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/span><\/div>\n
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