Michael Mann’s Heat 2 has finally sparked after the long wait. According to an exclusive from Deadline, the master of urban noir is about to come back together with Christian Bale for the daring prequel-sequel.
According to sources, Leonardo DiCaprio is still the frontrunner to be crowned for the role of Chris Shiherlis, the only living member of Neil McCauley’s crew who becomes invisible at the end of the 1995 masterpiece. Bale, still under the impact of his ferocious performances for Mann in Public Enemies and beyond, is already considering an unnamed but vital role in the huge two-part story, which A-list actors like Adam Driver and Austin Butler are rumoured to be joining.
The narrative is nothing less than Mann’s usual quality: it is a double-spaced line that goes back to 1988, unmasking the hot and flame-bathed starting of a young Vincent Hanna and the increasing McCauley crime family through the blood-thirsty zones of the Mexicali border, then it jumps to the 2000s, where a worn-out, perpetually tormented Hanna is running after Shiherlis through the global underworld while the new apex predator, the brutal Otis Wardell, is covering the U.S. Midwest with his unspeakable killings.
Mann will start filming in 2026, and he is putting together what could be the defining crime saga of the decade. The thirty years after the downtown Los Angeles shootout that changed the genre, the heat is, once again, very close indeed.
