Michael Mann sets a new manhunt novel which will also kick off a literary franchise

Last Updated on January 26, 2024

Michael Mann and Edgar-winning author Meg Gardiner are at it again, folks! Mann announced today that the duo will collaborate on a new original story that fans of Mann’s signature style will lose their heads for. According to Deadline‘s exclusive report, the new novel focuses on “an intense global manhunt launched by a renegade federal agent and a stateless operator on a vendetta, in a highly authentic global arena.” A Michael Mann manhunt novel, you say? Do go on!

Mann and Gardiner’s new novel is aiming at having franchise appeal. As the first book in a new series, the project is Mann’s second novel from Michael Mann Books after signing a three-book deal with HarperCollins arm William Morrow. Jennifer Brehl, who served as the editor of Mann and Gardiner’s Heat 2, will also work her magic on the new novel.

Speaking with Deadline last year, Mann said a theatrical adaptation of Heat 2 is his next project after Ferrari. “Yes. Meg Gardiner and myself wrote the novel Heat 2, which came out right when we were shooting Ferrari. It did very well. I plan to shoot that next.” And when the outlet asked if he would also bring Adam Driver with him to play the younger incarnation of De Niro’s Neil McCauley, “Perhaps. We don’t talk about that yet. Let me put it this way: Adam and I got along like a house on fire [on Ferrari]. We have the same work ethic – which is pretty intense. We like each other, and we had a great time working together artistically.”

Mann and Gardiner’s Heat 2 is a prequel and a sequel to the 1995 movie. You can read Amazon’s official description of Heat 2 below:

One day after the end of Heat, Chris Shiherlis (Val Kilmer) is holed up in Koreatown, wounded, half delirious, and desperately trying to escape LA. Hunting him is LAPD detective Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino). Hours earlier, Hanna killed Shiherlis’s brother in arms Neil McCauley (De Niro) in a gunfight under the strobe lights at the foot of an LAX runway. Now Hanna’s determined to capture or kill Shiherlis, the last survivor of McCauley’s crew, before he ghosts out of the city.

In 1988, seven years earlier, McCauley, Shiherlis, and their highline crew are taking scores on the West Coast, the US-Mexican border, and now in Chicago. Driven, daring, they’re pulling in money and living vivid lives. And Chicago homicide detective Vincent Hanna—a man unreconciled with his history—is following his calling, the pursuit of armed and dangerous men into the dark and wild places, hunting an ultraviolent gang of home invaders.

Meanwhile, the fallout from McCauley’s scores and Hanna’s pursuit cause unexpected repercussions in a parallel narrative, driving through the years following Heat.

Mann will direct and produce the theatrical version of Heat 2, about which we expect to hear more later this year. Are you excited about Mann and Gardiner’s manhunt novel? Let us know in the comments section below!