Heat 2 Release Date Announced by Michael Mann

Many movie fans consider Michael Mann’s Heat to be a defining entry into the crime-thriller genre, with the filmmaker returning to the world of the film with an all-new novel, Heat 2. As if returning to this world in any capacity isn’t exciting enough, the upcoming novel serves as both a prequel and a sequel to the 1995 film, as it will be a story that unfolds in 1989 and in 2002, chronicling not only what led to the events of the film but also the aftermath. Heat 2 is currently set to be published on August 9th.

Deadline confirms that the new novel was co-written by Mann alongside Edgar-winning author Meg Gardiner. Mann himself took to Twitter to share a teaser video to build excitement for the new novel, which you can check out below.

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Mann has a legacy of delivering audiences compelling and complex looks at characters on both sides of the law, with Heat arguably being his seminal exploration of the concept. What makes Heat an even more compelling experience is that it marked the first major big-screen meeting of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, despite having both appeared in The Godfather Part II together in different eras, with their on-screen exchanges elevating the experience to new heights. 

Pacino played lieutenant Vincent Hanna, who was hot on the heels of De Niro’s master thief Neil McCauley, with audiences witnessing their intricate game of cat and mouse. 

“It’s been my intention for a long time to do the further stories of Heat,” Mann revealed to Deadline. “There was always a rich history or back-story about the events in these people’s lives before 1995 in Heat and projection of where their lives would take them after.”

The outlet says the new novel “starts one day after the events of the film, with a wounded Chris Shiherlis [played by Val Kilmer in Heat] desperate to escape LA. The story moves to both the six years preceding the heist and the years immediately following it, featuring new characters and new worlds of high-end professional crime, with highly cinematic action sequences. The venues range from the streets of L.A. to the inner sanctums of rival Taiwanese crime syndicates in a South American free trade zone, to a massive drug cartel money-laundering operation just over the border in Mexico, and eventually to Southeast Asia. Heat 2 explores the dangerous workings of international criminal organizations with full-blooded portraits of its male and female inhabitants.”

It continues, “A key is a deep dive into the life of Hanna, six years earlier, in Chicago and signature cases that honed his skills. It includes the failing of his earlier marriage, the effects of his Marine Corps service in Vietnam, and conflicts within the Chicago PD where he discovers his life’s calling — the pursuit of armed and dangerous felons into the dark and wild places that would doom his marriage in Heat. In Chicago, that included the hunt for a particularly vicious crime crew. The book also covers the lives — six years before the bank heist — of master thieves McCauley and Shiherlis, whose character becomes central in the post-1995 world of Heat, as well as Charlene (Ashley Judd), Nate (Jon Voight), Trejo (Danny Trejo), and the wheelchair-bound Kelso (Tom Noonan), who provided the bank alarm schematics to McCauley in the film.”

Heat 2 will be hitting shelves on August 9th.

Are you looking forward to the novel? Let us know in the comments below!