From Michael Mann’s long career as a director, one of the films people point to as his best work is the 1995 crime thriller Heat, pairing the iconic Robert De Niro and Al Pacino together for the first time ever. Per Deadline, Mann has partnered with author Reed Farrel Coleman to create a prequel novel of the film that will be published next year under Mann’s publishing banner and William Morrow/HarperCollins.
The film sees De Niro as master thief Neil McCauley and Pacino as devoted detective Vincent Hannah as they try to outsmart the other, but realize they probably share more in common with each other than they’d like to admit. Mann and Coleman will tell an origin story for the characters in the film, so we could see how McCauley formed together his crew or was taught his mantra “Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner” or even Hannah’s early cases.
There’s a lot of room for the pair to choose from other than the past events referenced in the film. Heat was based upon some of the cases by Mann’s friend Charlie Adamson, a detective who hunted the real McCauley and even had a conversation with him over coffee much like the famous scene in the film. To prepare for the novel, Coleman will apparently delve into Mann’s research files on Adamson and his career. Mann interviewed several authors for the project, but settled on Coleman because he is a fan of the authors Gus Murphy mystery series that follows a retired Suffolk County cop solving crimes.
Heat celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2015 where Mann had a lengthy Q&A with fans at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film will also be getting a re-release on blu-ray on May 9 with a Director’s Definitive Edition. It will feature a couple changes Mann has made to the film over the years along with the same special features included on the previous DVD and blu-ray releases, but will also include the TIFF Q&A session as well as a sit down conversation with De Niro, Pacino and director Christopher Nolan, who has said in the past Heat is one of his favourite films and used it for inspiration on The Dark Knight.
Right now Mann’s next project will be producing Hue 1968, a 8 – 10 hour miniseries based around the Vietnam War. As well as producing it, its said he will also direct a few episodes too.
How do you feel about a Heat prequel? Are you excited for it or would you rather Mann make this a film rather than a novel? Let us know below…
Originally published April 28, 2017. Updated April 15, 2018.
