Heat 2 will see Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale share the screen for the first time ever in their long careers: the star of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy recently confirmed his involvement in Michael Mann’s sequel to Fox 32 News while promoting his upcoming horror-romance film The Bride. Furthermore, when GamesRadar asked him how excited he was to collaborate with the star of Inception and Battle After Battle, Christian Bale replied: “We were going to do a couple of movies together in the past, we did some readings for projects. So, yes, it should be, it will be something great.”
The actor, who unlike Leonardo DiCaprio has already worked under Michael Mann’s direction in Public Enemies, alongside Johnny Depp, added: “I always think it’s better never to meet the people you see on screen, because, you know, they’re human, right? They can’t live up to what you imagined them to be. I’m very grateful when people talk to me, but I’m also chronically aware that I’m a ridiculous disappointment. I never wanted to meet anyone. You know, even now, when I do get to meet people, I keep my expectations low: ‘It’s what they do that I find compelling, not them; I don’t want to put that pressure on them. They’re people who have lived their lives… difficult, complicated, etc. You know, it’s none of my business. What concerns me is what they choose to show the world through their art.”
Based on Michael Mann’s 2022 novel of the same name, which serves as both a sequel and prequel to his 1995 crime thriller, Heat 2 will tell two intertwined stories set in two different timelines, 1988 and 2002: at the center of the story will be the journey of criminal Chris Shiherlis (Val Kilmer’s character in the original film) from Los Angeles to Southeast Asia, where, after the events of the first film, he finds himself involved in an international drug cartel; other subplots in the book involve detective Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino’s character) trying to track down a serial killer in Chicago in 1988, a case that almost brought him face to face with bank robber Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro’s character) seven years before the events of Heat; an ambitious robbery organized by Neil in 1988 on the Mexican border, together with a young Chris; and the hunt that Hanna organizes to track down Chris in the present.
At the moment, it is unclear who Christian Bale or Leonardo DiCaprio will play, and the various timelines of the story do not make it easy to imagine a fantasy cast: Austin Butler, Bradley Cooper, Ana de Armas, and Adria Arjona have also been linked to the highly anticipated film, which will begin shooting in August with Amazon MGM as the production company, while Adam Driver seems to be confirmed. Before then, Christian Bale will be seen as Frankenstein’s monster, alongside the main character played by Jessie Buckley, in The Bride!, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s punk-rock version of The Bride of Frankenstein.
The Bride! will be released on March 5 in Italy, while Heat 2 is scheduled for 2027. We remind Michael Mann fans that in the same year, Universal Pictures will release the remake of Miami Vice directed by Joseph Kosinski, with Mann serving as a consultant.
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