Michael Mann will use AI to age and rejuvenate his actors in Heat 2

The director has made quite a few revelations about his next film, which should soon begin filming.

Honored in Lyon all weekend, Michael Mann took the opportunity to take stock Heat 2.

And to everyone’s surprise, the director said he was ready to experiment with artificial intelligence for this sequel.

Just after receiving the 2025 Lumière Prize from Isabelle Huppert, Michael Mann confided that he could use it for both aesthetic and dramatic reasons: “I never experiment with technology for free. When I have a dramatic or aesthetic need, then I explore deeply what I need.” And to specify:

“Aging and rejuvenation could be very important in my next film…”

A statement that directly echoes the imminent filming of Heat 2a sequel and prequel to the 1995 classic, with production scheduled to begin in summer 2026.

The film recently left the Warner Bros. studio. to join Amazon MGM and United Artists, under the leadership of producer Scott Stuber. And Michael Mann embraces this change:

“Heat 2 is an expensive film to produce, but I believe it needs to be made at the right size, with the right scope. It will be filmed in Chicago, Los Angeles, Paraguay and possibly parts of Singapore.”

On release, the filmmaker promises a real theatrical release:

“We left Warner Bros. for Amazon and United Artists, but it will absolutely be released theatrically, probably in about 4,000 theaters in the United States, and for at least 45 days.”

Contrary to Ferrarisold to Amazon after independent production and deprived of release in several territories, Heat 2 will therefore have a cinematographic career that matches his ambitions.

On the plot side, Mann confirms that the film will alternate past and present, before and after the events of the first Heat.

“The story will resume one day after the end of the film: only Val Kilmer is still alive, and he must flee the United States (…) The characters of Heat are still alive for me. An idea came to me, based on the relationship between two lethal adversaries – Hannah (Pacino) and McCauley (De Niro) – about how to tell both before and after the events of Heat.”

He finally evokes a key period:

“Hannah and McCauley were changed by what happened in 1988, when Hannah was a cop in Chicago and McCauley had a wife, a stepdaughter, a model American family that he cared about dearly.”

Heat 2 does not yet have a release date.