One trend we’ve enjoyed over the last few years is the emergence of the master filmmaker-turned-novelist as a concept. Brian De Palma churns out pretty solid little thrillers for Hard Case Crime every now and then. Depending on who you ask, Quentin Tarantino either wonderfully expands the world he created for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in his novelization of the film or pisses all over one of his greatest achievements. In a few months, Michael Mann will join them, and we’ll be getting possibly the biggest literature-and-film crossover event in decades with the release of Heat 2, Mann’s hardbound sequel/prequel to his 1996 masterpiece. Deadline announced both the release date and the title for the book, while Mann took to Twitter to reveal a trailer for the project.
— Michael Mann (@MichaelMann) January 19, 2022
You really should go and read the whole Deadline article, as they got a chance to sit down with Mann and get some really fascinating information about the entire endeavor, but we’ve excerpted some pretty interesting information about the novel’s contents for your perusal here. Here’s a bit about where the novel starts off:
“The novel ‘Heat 2’ 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.”
And here’s some more about what the prequel aspects of the novel will explore:
“A key is a deep dive into the life of Hanna [Al Pacino], 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 Corp 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 [Robert De Niro] 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.”
Honestly, if all of that doesn’t make you just want to go on whatever site you buy books from (or run to your local bookshop and plunk some cash down so you can get your copy as soon as it drops, we’re wondering if you really have your priorities in order. Food? Shelter? Water? Pssh. Heat 2. We’re pretty sure Maslow would have thrown the whole fucking hierarchy out of the window if he were able to get a hold of this on release date. As for when that will be, Heat 2 will arrive on bookstore shelves on August 9.