A red carpet image of actor Leonardo DiCaprioImage: Julie Edwards/Future Image/Cover Images
By
Chris McPherson
Published 39 minutes ago
Chris is a Senior News Writer for Collider. He can be found in an IMAX screen, with his eyes watering and his ears bleeding for his own pleasure. He joined the news team in 2022 and accidentally fell upwards into a senior position despite his best efforts.
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For years, Heat 2 has lived in that maddening space between “dream project” and “it’s really happening.” Michael Mann expanded his seminal 1995 crime saga into a bestselling novel, cast rumors have swirled, and fans have endlessly debated who could possibly step into roles once played by Al Pacino and Val Kilmer.
Now we finally have confirmation that Leonardo DiCaprio is in — but there’s a twist: he and Mann still haven’t decided who he’s going to play. In a wide-ranging new interview with Variety, DiCaprio confirmed that he’s actively working with Mann on Heat 2, calling it a true continuation of the story… and also a separate beast.
“This is very much its own movie. We’re still working on it, we’re a ways away from production. It tips its hat to Heat, but it’s an homage, and it picks up the story from there. The book is already out there, so there are no big secrets that I’m divulging. It’s set in the future, and the past, from that pivotal moment in what I think is the great crime noir film of my lifetime. It’s one of those films that just keeps resonating, that we keep talking about, that has been imitated so many times and influenced so many different movies. So, we’re working on it. But it’s certainly exciting, and I think I look at it as its own silo, in a sense. We can’t duplicate what Heat was, so it’s paying homage to that film, but giving it its own unique entity.”
That alone would’ve been a big enough update. But things get much more interesting when the conversation turns to which character he’s actually playing. As fans of Mann’s novel already know, Heat 2 jumps between timelines — following both master thief Chris Shiherlis (originally played by the late Val Kilmer) and obsessive cop Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) across past and future. Naturally, speculation has centered on which role DiCaprio would inherit. Asked point-blank whether he’ll play Hanna or Shiherlis, he keeps it deliberately vague:
“We’re in mid-discussion.”
'Heat 2' Is DiCaprio and Mann's First Project
For DiCaprio, working with Mann isn’t some random late-career team-up — it’s been brewing since he was a teenager. He recalls testing with Mann to play James Dean at 18, and later watching Mann develop the script for The Aviator before ultimately handing it off to Martin Scorsese, the director who’d become DiCaprio’s most frequent creative partner. Even back then, DiCaprio saw Mann as an all-consuming world-builder:
“There’s nothing that he hasn’t thought of. He’s thought of every single nuance and detail of the character, of the world, and he’s going to have an answer for any questions you might have.”
Now, decades later, Heat 2 feels like the culmination of that unfinished collaboration — a chance for DiCaprio to step into the universe of what he openly calls “the great crime noir film of my lifetime.”
Importantly, DiCaprio doesn’t talk about Heat 2 like a nostalgia play or a cash-in. He’s very clear that trying to replicate the original would be a mistake:
“We can’t duplicate what Heat was, so it’s paying homage to that film, but giving it its own unique entity.”
Stay tuned for more updates on Heat 2.
Heat
Like Follow Followed R Action Crime Documentary Drama Thriller Release Date December 15, 1995 Runtime 170 minutes Director Michael Mann Writers Michael MannCast
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Al Pacino
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Robert De Niro
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Leonardo DiCaprio
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