According to Deadline, Jason Clarke is being eyed to join the cast of Michael Mann’s Heat 2. Which role he would play is being kept under wraps, but this would be a reunion between Clarke and Mann, who worked together on Public Enemies.
Heat 2 Will Be An Homage to the Original Movie
Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale are each said to have roles in the film, although sources say that no cast deals are currently in place. DiCaprio confirmed several months ago that those discussions are underway, but teased that he sees the sequel as more of a homage to the original movie.
“This is very much its own movie. We’re still working on it, we’re a ways away from production,” he said. “It tips its hat to Heat, but it’s an homage, and it picks up the story from there. The book is already out there, so there are no big secrets that I’m divulging. It’s set in the future, and the past, from that pivotal moment in what I think is the great crime noir film of my lifetime. It’s one of those films that just keeps resonating, that we keep talking about, that has been imitated so many times and influenced so many different movies. So, we’re working on it. But it’s certainly exciting, and I think I look at it as its own silo, in a sense. We can’t duplicate what Heat was, so it’s paying homage to that film, but giving it its own unique entity.“
A Prequel and a Sequel
Mann will direct Heat 2 from his own script, which is adapted from the 2022 novel he wrote with Meg Gardiner. The story is both a prequel and a sequel. It looks at Vincent Hanna’s years in Chicago, Neil McCauley’s earlier criminal life, and Chris Shiherlis’s survival after the bank robbery depicted in the original film.
Honestly, I never expected that Heat 2 would happen, and I suppose there’s still time for it to fall apart, but it does appear to be moving forward. I still don’t know if it needs to happen, but I’m just grateful that the sequel won’t be going the digital de-aging route with its original cast. Al Pacino and Robert De Niro are in their 80s, and Val Kilmer is sadly no longer with us.
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