The Big Picture

• Heat 2 expands on the world and characters of the iconic film with a globetrotting narrative that takes place in Mexico, Paraguay, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
• The novel delves deeper into the personalities of Vincent Hanna, Neil McCauley, and Chris Shiherlis, showcasing their personal growth and motivations through thrilling events.
• Michael Mann and co-writer Meg Gardiner collaborated extensively to bring the story to life, breathing new life into the "Heat" universe and leaving the possibility of a big-screen adaptation.

Michael Mann's Heat is one of cinema's most beloved crime films. Aside from famously having Al Pacino and Robert De Niro officially share the screen for the first time, it remains a shining example of three-dimensional characters, complex narrative themes, and thrilling action set against a vast urban backdrop. But the legendary exploits of detective Vincent Hanna (Pacino), career thief Neil McCauley (De Niro), and Chris Shiherlis (Val Kilmer) would live on beyond Heat's dramatic conclusion at the Los Angeles airport. 27 years later, working alongside fellow writer Meg Gardiner, Mann undertook his first major literary endeavor and co-wrote Heat 2, which serves as both a prequel and sequel to his iconic film and greatly expands on its source material. Featuring several familiar faces alongside new allies and villains, Mann's novel more than succeeds in giving readers an adrenaline-fueled ride complete with detailed insight into the world and characters he laid the foundation for in 1995.

What is 'Heat 2' About?

Heat 2 is globetrotting, action-packed storytelling at its finest. Employing a non-linear structure that takes place in 1988, 1995, 1996, and 2000, the novel kicks off in the immediate aftermath of its predecessor. A badly wounded bank robber on the run, Chris Shiherlis narrowly escapes authorities and flees to Mexico. Supplied with funds and a new identity courtesy of Nate (played by Jon Voight in the film), the L.A. fugitive makes his way to Ciudad del Este in Paraguay, the largest city within the Triple Frontier region of South America. As he soon discovers, Ciudad del Este is the Wild West, a playground catering to all manner of organized crime, both old school and modern. He forms partnerships with a handful of characters that lead him to the company of two rival Taiwanese families, the Lius and the Chens, as they compete for control over markets involving the latest in high-tech electronics and other products. After falling for Ana—a key player in the Liu family—Chris finds himself treading on thin ice as tensions between the dynasty families rise to a fever pitch.

Cut to 1988. Vincent Hanna and Neil McCauley are living in Chicago. Existing on parallel tracks but oblivious to each other's existence, the future foes are at the top of their respective games in law enforcement and theft. But what binds their fates and sees them nearly cross paths in the Windy City is the violent criminal Otis Wardell. Possessing a penchant for sinister theatrics and torture, Wardell rivals Heat's Waingro (Kevin Gage) as the story's premier psychopath running amok. The novel's Chicago portion arguably belongs to Hanna, whose trademark obsessive and meticulous methods have him hot on the killer's tail after a brutal home invasion. On the other side of the law, McCauley, always the calculated professional in his own right, busies himself with a robbery that ultimately yields precious information regarding a potential takedown elsewhere.

After Hanna nearly apprehends Wardell and McCauley barely avoids the criminal's sadistic ways, both men leave Chicago and readers follow McCauley to the US-Mexican border. Along with his familiar crew including Chris and Michael Cherrito (played by Tom Sizemore in the film), Neil's in the company of his girlfriend, Elisa, and her daughter, Gabriella. Based on the information they stumbled on during their Chicago score, the men prepare for what may be their most ambitious and dangerous heist yet: ripping off a Mexican cartel's stash house. While the score itself goes down successfully, Neil pays a high price when the vicious Wardell, having followed the men to the border, kidnaps Elisa in the hopes of making out with the crew's take.

12 years later, the action pivots to Los Angeles. Five years after the events of Heat, Vincent Hanna is on the prowl for the killer of a young woman, and the nature of her murder reminds the detective of a particularly grisly criminal from Chicago in 1988. As fate would have it, Otis Wardell has come to L.A., and Hanna's hellbent on getting his man this time. And as if the world weren't already small enough, Elisa's daughter Gabriella—now an adult—is also in the city and proves essential in Hanna's search for Wardell. At the same time, Chris has traveled from Paraguay to L.A. for business and has his own plans for the man who killed his brother in crime five years before. With all these characters and subplots converging, Heat 2 arrives at an explosive, utterly white-knuckle conclusion. Imagine the downtown shootout in Heat if it were to play out on the city's 105 highway.

What Does The Novel Reveal About The Characters In The Film?

Aside from the pulse-pounding action and thrills one would expect from a sequel novel to Mann's film, Heat 2 is also an exercise in character building, adding to and layering the already three-dimensional individuals we first met on screen in 1995. While Vincent Hanna navigates the novel's 1988 chapters with his trademark ax-to-grind and crass, fast-talking nature, his experience of tracking the ruthless Otis Wardell in Chicago finds him taken aback by the often perplexing nature of such violent people and crimes, ultimately leading him down a professional road that blurs moral lines in pursuit of vigilante justice. It's no wonder that one day he'd tell his wife, "All I am is who I'm going after."

Likewise, Heat 2 establishes a predicate of significant change for Neil McCauley. In the novel, though always the consummate thief, he's a man seemingly unafraid of personal attachment, possessing deep affection for his girlfriend and her daughter. After a series of dramatic events on the US-Mexico border, however, his life is forever altered, and he soon adopts the signature mantra he espouses in the film: "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."

Chris Shiherlis arguably undergoes the most significant arc of the novel's three main characters. Prior to the events of Heat, he was largely at the service of something greater than himself as a member of a crew, a cog in the wheel. After escaping L.A., and forging a new path in Paraguay and the greater realm of international vice, he takes on a newfound level of independence and vision, making moves without hesitation and taking full control of his destiny as a criminal mastermind. By the novel's end, Chris is more assured and determined than ever before, no longer relegated to the sidelines of decision-making and relying on no one other than himself.

How Did 'Heat 2' Happen?

Speaking about the desire to return to the richly dense world he created, Michael Mann told Rolling Stone, "I never really left them, and they never really left me." The filmmaker, well-known for performing exhaustive research when undertaking a project, wrote detailed backstories for his characters in preparation for making Heat. Despite having all that material, however, Mann wanted a fresh set of eyes to collaborate with, and he found them in novelist Meg Gardiner. Regarding the proposition of working with a filmmaker and writer she admired, Gardiner said, "I'd always wanted to write a heist novel. What better chance to do that than with these characters, in that world?!"

The two writers soon went to work, and Mann shared with Gardiner the extensive information and references he'd compiled decades before for his film. "I wanted to bring her into the Heat universe--because it really is a universe. So I kind of dropped Meg into the deep end of the pool with that stuff," he's said of the process. Gardiner remembers, "he was moving into a new arena, and I think he wanted to work with an experienced novelist on this--specifically, a crime novelist. He already had the arc of the story, though. I think he'd been thinking about this for decades."

Much of the work between the duo was done remotely, exchanging emails and Word documents from halfway around the globe. While Mann was largely responsible for the novel's overall structure, he and Gardiner didn't simply divide the workload, but often wrote concurrently, revising, polishing, and adding to one another's material. Mann said of the collaboration, "I'd be stuck on something and say, 'Look, I've been on these three pages for two days now. Can you take a crack at this?' and vice versa." It wouldn't be until after working remotely for a year that they would first sit down face-to-face in Los Angeles. Gardiner said of finally meeting her writing partner, "I got my own Vincent-Neil coffee shop scene with him!"

Will 'Heat 2' Be Adapted For The Screen?

With renewed interest in the Heat universe rising after the sequel's publication, this is the million-dollar question. As of right now, one can only speculate if and how Michael Mann's novel will be adapted for the big or small screen. But fans would do well to remain optimistic based on the filmmaker's comments regarding his interest in an adaptation. In speaking to Rolling Stone, he briefly but boldly claimed, "if we do it, we're going to do it big."

Whether unfounded or not, rumors have been swirling about the idea of recasting the novel's principal characters, particularly for its prequel segments, and Mann has voiced opposition to using digital de-aging techniques on members of his original cast. Commenting on the increasingly evolving and popular technology, Mann's revealed, "it's not for me. I just don't connect with heavy prosthetics or visual effect-laden things. I’d also have a problem with the movement of the actors." Anyone who's seen The Irishman, though impressive and enjoyable as it may be, must acknowledge that some scenes display a performative disconnect between youthful faces and aging body language that simply can't be ignored.

Also open for speculation is whether Heat 2 would be adapted as a film or miniseries. While the latter would certainly give Mann and his storytelling team a great deal of room to breathe, allowing the epic scope of his novel to fully flourish in terms of content and character, the ambition behind a film adaptation would be an equally thrilling prospect for fans and casual viewers alike. Mann would undoubtedly have to significantly pair down the novel's narrative to accommodate even the most lengthy and large-scale of films, but the notion of seeing Heat 2 on the big screen, realized with a hefty budget enabling shooting in exotic locations and the staging of epic action sequences, is simply too enticing to overlook.

Heat is now available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.

Watch on Netflix