Leonardo DiCaprio Is Breaking His Cardinal Movie Rule After 34 Years (& It’s Perfect)

Since Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio has become one of Hollywood’s greatest working actors. In 2016, he won an Oscar for method acting in The Revenant, and rumors say he’s a frontrunner again this year for One Battle After Another. Yet Leo’s long-term relevance may in part be thanks to the set of rules he follows when considering a role. While he famously shared a bit of his doctrine with Timothee Chalamet, telling the young Dune star to steer clear of hard drugs and superhero movies, his cardinal rule remains mostly unspoken. And no, it’s not refusing to date anyone over 25. 

For three decades, DiCaprio has upheld a philosophy of avoiding sequels like the plague. However, that streak will soon come to an end, as he is officially breaking his own edict to star in Michael Mann’s Heat 2, a continuation of the 1995 crime classic starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Val Kilmer. Notably, it’s not a follow-up to one of DiCaprio’s own films, nor does it resemble the cash-grab sequels we see so often today. Rather, DiCaprio will be taking up the mantle of crime flick lead, and we couldn’t be more excited. 

Leo Breaks His Own Rule to Join the Cast of Michael Mann’s Heat Sequel

Mann first expanded Heat into a novel co-written with Meg Gardiner, fleshing out the backstories of Pacino’s tormented cop Vincent Hanna and Kilmer’s deuteragonist thief Chris Shiherlis, while also pushing their stories forward. The film version of Heat 2 is expected to follow the book’s structure, jumping across timelines and diving into Mann’s criminal underworld. But while DiCaprio’s place on the call sheet has been officially confirmed, the specific role he will take is unknown. Many have speculated that he’ll be stepping into the shoes of Shiherlis, whose survival at the end of the original movie left him primed for a sequel. It’s also possible Pacino will pass the torch, and that DiCaprio will don the suit to play the stressed-out LAPD detective. 

A dream come true for DiCaprio, the actor has spoken fondly about meeting Mann when he was 18. Early in his career, Leo watched Mann develop The Aviator before the filmmaker passed it off to Martin Scorsese, kicking off one iconic actor-director duo, but pushing the Mann/DiCaprio collaboration further into the future. Finally working together twenty years later, DiCaprio expressed his excitement about the project to Variety, calling Mann’s original film “the great crime noir of my lifetime.”

Like a Scorsese or Tarantino, Mann is equipped to create the kind of on-set environment DiCaprio thrives in. If all goes well, we’ll get Leo alongside other incredible actors, including Christian Bale, Austin Butler, and Adam Driver, delivering a gripping crime thriller that rivals the original. Ultimately, if the Wolf of Wall Street star was ever going to break his “no sequels” rule, this is the film to break it for. And to be fair, DiCaprio’s resume was never perfectly clear of sequels anyway, as his movie ever was technically Critters 3.

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