A Heat prequel/sequel book will follow a variety of characters from the film, including the ones played by Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, and Val Kilmer. Released in 1995, Heat was written and directed by Michael Mann and followed a detective named Vincent Hanna (Pacino) tracking down a heist crew led by Neil McCauley (De Niro), which includes his right-hand man Chris (Kilmer), Michael (Tom Sizemore), and Trejo (Danny Trejo). Hanna's police crew includes Bosko (Ted Levine), Casals (Wes Studi), and Drucker (Mykelti Williamson), who go head-to-head with the criminals in a game of cat-and-mouse in what is often considered one of the best crime thrillers ever made.
Mann is known for his stylish, violent crime films, as well as his penchant for working with name actors and pulling tremendous, off-brand performances out of them. He was a producer on the original Miami Vice TV series, later directing a feature adaptation in 2006 starring Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx. Some of his more notable features throughout the years include Thief with James Caan, Manhunter with William Peterson (an adaptation of Thomas Harris's Red Dragon), The Last of the Mohicans with Daniel Day Lewis, Ali with Will Smith, The Insider with Russell Crowe, and Collateral with Tom Cruise.
In a recent guest appearance on The Rewatchables podcast, Mann goes into detail about the backstories for the characters from Heat. The director says he has a "complete biography" of Vincent Hanna, as well as of the other characters in the film, which were given to the actors to prepare for their roles in the film. Mann, who previously announced that he'd be writing a prequel novel to Heat when his Michael Mann Books label was announced years ago, says that these backstories were what set him off on the idea of continuing their journey in book form. Here's what he had to say:
Some of this stuff, it’s so vivid, worked out and thorough that compelled us…we’ve written a novel. Not on Heat, but everything preceding Heat and everything following Heat and it’s because these characters are so vivid. And it’ll be coming out next summer.
When asked if there was ever consideration of doing a Heat sequel, or if there was ever an idea for how to expand the story, Mann refers back to the novel. "There is," says Mann. "That's why we wrote this novel. It starts in 1988 and it ends in 1998." Previous reports labeled the endeavor as simply a "prequel," but it now appears to be something more all-encompassing and covering a much longer gap of time, likely with the backstories of these characters that were outlined when preparing the film.
Heat continues to be one of the most revered crime thrillers in film history, particularly for the daytime robbery sequence, which is so thorough that it's used as a training aide for U.S. Marines and as inspiration for other filmmakers, including Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder. Hanna, McCauley, and Chris are all multi-faceted characters in the movie, and a deeper exploration of them is a welcome idea, especially since it's far too late to make an actual sequel with those actors. Exploring who they were, how they became what they became, and where they ended up should make for a nice bookend to Heat, which is made all the more interesting by having Mann actually writing the tale.
Source: The Rewatchables