Michael Mann talks about 'Heat 2' script, says "It has to be finished really soon"

Washington [US], December 9 : American film director and screenwriter Michael Mann talked about 'Heat 2', his follow-up film to the 1995 crime drama 'Heat' that starred Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, while attending the Red Sea Film Festival, as per The Hollywood Reporter.
"The next (movie) I'd like to do is Heat 2," Mann reiterated in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, during an informal conversation in Old City Al Balad after an earlier screening of 'Heat' at the festival.
He didn't much open up about the screenplay for the project, which Mann has reportedly set up at Warner Bros. "It has to be finished really soon."
The 'Heat' sequel has been on hold for some time, but Mann revived the concept with his 2022 crime novel 'Heat 2', co-written by 81-year-old director and author Meg Gardiner, which serves as both a prequel and a sequel to Mann's 1995 crime cinema masterpiece.
More recently, there have been reports that Warner Bros., which distributed the first film, is on board to fund development for Heat 2, and that Adam Driver, who starred in Mann's 2023 film Ferrari, is in talks to play young Neil McCauley, the brilliant thief played by Robert DeNiro in the first film.
"'Heat', co-starring Tom Sizemore, Jon Voight and Val Kilmer, is a cat-and-mouse actioner centring on an obsessive Los Angeles detective, played by Al Pacino, trying to track down and catch McCauley, whose crew is responsible for a series of brazen, high-stakes heists," as per The Hollywood Reporter.
He also explained his focus in 'Ferrari', besides on thrilling race scenes, turned on character and key relationships, including between Enzo and Laura (Enzo's wife, portrayed by Penelope Cruz) and Enzo and Lena (his lover, portrayed by Shailene Woodley).
Mann paid tribute to Cruz for having a firm idea of her character, Laura Ferrari, on set. "She is completely self-confident. She has a primitive, almost tribal sense of knowing a thing when she knows something you can't shake," the Ferrari director recalled, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The biopic of racing mogul Enzo Ferrari stars Adam Driver, Penelope Cruz and Shailene Woodley.
The film's subject matter is near and dear to Italians' hearts, telling a story beginning in the summer of 1957 with ex-racer Enzo Ferrari (Driver) in crisis. Bankruptcy threatens the factory he and his wife, Laura (Penelope Cruz), built from nothing 10 years earlier. Their volatile marriage has been battered by the loss of their son a year earlier, and Ferrari struggles to acknowledge his son with Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley). Meanwhile, his drivers' passion to win pushes them to the edge as they launch into the treacherous 1,000-mile race across Italy, the Mille Miglia.