Michael Mann Wants Adam Driver For The Robert De Niro Role In Heat 2

Are you starting to feel the heat around the corner? Adam Driver certainly is. Consider it officially official that acclaimed director Michael Mann, who earlier this year was reported to be eyeing Driver as the lead of the feature film adaptation of his own novel "Heat 2," is gunning for the "House of Gucci" and "The Last Duel" star to step into the incredibly intimidating shoes of none other than Robert De Niro himself.

Famously cast as career criminal Neil McCauley in the original 1995 "Heat" opposite Al Pacino as cop Vincent Hanna, De Niro earned all sorts of recognition (although tragically not a Best Actor nom) for his performance in what's commonly considered one of the greatest action movies of all time. The fact that Mann even wants to return to the scene of the crime and attempt to bring his long-awaited sequel/prequel novel (co-written by both Mann and Meg Gardiner; read our review here) to the big screen is exciting enough, but consider us fully invested in his choice of Driver — not exactly someone who fans would peg as a young De Niro lookalike, mind you — for the role of a young Neil McCauley. Those who've watched the actor in films like "Silence," "Paterson," and "The Report," however, know that he easily has the chops to pull this off.

Mann confirmed as much in a recent video interview with Variety (via the popular Michael Mann Facts Twitter account), where he stated:

In a new video with Variety, Michael Mann confirms that he wants to cast Adam Driver as Neil McCauley in Heat 2.

Michael Mann Factspic.twitter.com/WilrmaGBOQ

— Michael Mann Facts (@MannFacts) August 23, 2023

"Adam and I talked about it extensively from before the strike began when we were still shooting 'Ferrari,' I wanted him to play the Robert De Niro character."

Read on for more details!

Has Michael Mann found his newest muse? After working on his highly anticipated "Ferrari" biopic with Adam Driver cast as Enzo Ferrari himself, it sure seems like that collaboration went incredibly well and directly informed the actor's potential involvement in "Heat 2." The follow-up story, which in the novel takes the fascinating approach of acting as both a sequel and a prequel, gave Mann the freedom to expand on the backstories and motivations of several of the main players throughout the action. Although (spoiler alert!) De Niro's Neil McCauley is killed off by the end of the original film, that didn't stop Mann from diving further into what exactly made such a fascinating character tick.

He explained as much in a new profile with Variety. Although he stops short of promising that "Heat 2" will be his next film after "Ferrari" ("I want to make it. But if I don't, I won't be incomplete," he states at the very end of the article), he does shed some light on how he wants to approach the characters in the prequel/sequel:

"In the prequel, I don't want them to be the same people that they are in the movie. I want them to be very different. It's what befalls them — the conflicts, the tragedies that happen to them — that made them into the people they are."

For Neil, it's the events of the prequel that give him the gospel, 'Don't have anything in life you can't walk away from in 30 seconds.'"

We seem to be getting closer and closer to "Heat 2" becoming a reality, with Driver being eyed to star. But until then, at least we have "Ferrari" to look forward to. Expect the racing drama to arrive on Christmas day of this year.